


Midnight to Six

by IVK



Series: Midnight to Dawn [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Basically Just Sarcastic Angst, Is that not all Anakin Skywalker is??, Multi, VAMPAKIN, alternate universe - vampire hunter, anakins flirting skills are incredible, obi wans flirting skills are also incredible, obikin, padme is an expert at rejecting men, please just let these boys sleep, this started as a joke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-17 04:22:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 31,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5854084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IVK/pseuds/IVK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anakin still has the scars on his neck that serve as a reminder of the night. They have reminded him all through his life that the dark side is real.<br/>-<br/>AKA, Anakin struggles with vampirism, and Obi-Wan is stuck watching the fall of the best friend he's probably in love with.<br/>-<br/>Parts 1 and 2 are both posted here</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> alright listen up this is the first fanfiction i've ever written and it's a star wars vampire au. i'm also fairly new to the STAR WARS fandom, so there will def be inaccuracies but i don't care i am having a BLAST. i had a dream obi wan was a vampire hunter and this started as a joke. toss me in the trash im ready.

“You are in my very soul.”

  
“And you're kinda fucking creepy.”

It was kind of a harsh rejection, all things considered. But Padme has made it perfectly clear on multiple occasions that she _really doesn't care if they had gone to elementary school together._

Anakin ponders this long after the skies have gone black, staring up at the shadowed white of his bedroom ceiling. There's a stain from water damage in the corner that looks kind of like the limb of a tree, kind of like coffee spilled on paper, but he's gotten used to its presence above his bed. The apartment is kind of shit—no, it's definitely shit. But he should probably be grateful. He's unemployed and broke and the flat is paid for him, personally, by his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi.

If there's anything that sets Anakin Skywalker too-far apart from Padme, it's the fact he's known of the existence of the dark side since he was playing with her at recess.  
But now Padme hasn't been too keen on spending any bit of time in his company, despite how he badgered her in the local cafe when she went on her morning coffee run. She's in college, interning at some irrelevant business Anakin couldn't care less about, and he should _really_ stop thinking about her and get to sleep.

Which he does, eventually, but it doesn't last long.

He wakes immediately to the sound of the door to his flat opening. It creaks when it opens, and it's hard to sleep through hinges screaming. He's upright in his bed immediately, cheap metal springs creaking louder and his hand fumbles beneath his pillow for only a second before retracting with a hold on his stake. The thing is two feet long and made of thin, heavy wood sharpened to a point on either side. Grooves made of symbols he doesn't know the meaning of are carved all through it, where dead blood is supposed to run. He grasps it by the leather grip at the center, eyes flitting about the dark room.

It's too dark, damn it. The only pale light comes murkily from the nearest street lamp outside of his window, but the blinds are mostly shut. He's not about to take his eyes off the room to open them. He'll trust his other senses.

The dark silhouette of a man is ambling its way toward him and Anakin grips the stake tighter. He's never actually had an encounter with anything from the dark side, but this seems as if it might be his first time. Part of him hopes it's just a burglar. A bigger part of him hopes it's a fucking vampire. It's about time he's killed one.

When the silhouette jumps to attack, Anakin is sure it's a vampire. He strikes forward with his stake, lunging to his feet, but the only purchase he makes is batting the creature aside. He's in his underwear and he steps on something in the dark that feels like a plastic fork from dinner, but he ignores it, striking again. The vampire ducks. It looks as if it's wearing a long cloak, hood drawn up to farther shadow it's pale face and sunken eyes.

The fight lasts too long. Anakin knows how to overpower a vampire—Obi-Wan's trained him in this kind of shit since he was a kid. Yet it's as if this thing _knows_ his every move, anticipates each attack.

There's sweat beading on his brow and he finally makes it over to the light switch. Fluorescent light floods over the kitchen area and the fight is over. Anakin has his stake held in front of him, breaths heaving in and out, as he faces his mentor who is laughing too hard to make a sound.

“God damn it, Obi-Wan,” Anakin huffs, setting his stake down aggressively on the counter. He leans against it and catches his breath.

The man's chuckling finally becomes audible as he lowers the hood of his brown cloak. Why did he always wear that, anyway? It was like there was a Jedi hunter dress-code.

“It's not funny,” Anakin tells him, filling up a glass of water from the sink, but he's kind of laughing too.

“I was only—”

“Testing me, yeah, I know. I was only trying to get an hour of sleep. Maybe two.”

“My apologies,” Obi-Wan says, smiling. “But you fought well, Anakin. I must say, whatever vampire you encounter will not stand a chance.”

He drinks down the glass of stale-tasting water before replying. “Now what?”

“Now . . . Now there is more important business to attend to. Your presence is requested at the meeting of the Jedi council.”

He frowns, looking back over at his mentor. “It's four in the morning.”

Something grim has come to shadow Obi-Wan's face, all traces of joking gone. “And it's important.”

Damn the man for being so cryptic, sometimes.

Anakin gets dressed in yesterday's jeans, yesterday's t-shirt, and a customized leather jacket with patches falling off. When he gets into Obi-Wan's car, the top is down. It's an old, dark-brown muscle car, _just_ flashy enough to drive through the city in. Usually Anakin was the one driving, but Obi-Wan always complained that he drove _“much too fast and incredibly reckless!”_ The radio is on but it's way too quiet and besides, Obi-Wan only listens to weird old-school rock. Anakin leans back in the seat and looks up at the stars and the street lamps flying by.

_The Jedi council_ is the pretentious name for the pack of hunters Anakin joined. Well, much less joined, more so that he was adopted into. He lived with his mom who worked minimum wage, until he was attacked by a vampire. Obi-Wan had saved him. They'd both been so young, then, and Anakin still has the scars on his neck that serve as a reminder of the night. They have reminded him all through his life that the dark side is real.

After high school, he told his mom he was going to a trade school. It wasn't too much of a lie.

The council meets in a pretty run-down warehouse on a pretty run-down street in an all but abandoned part of town. All of the buildings are falling apart, most of which uninhabited, except for the office of the hunters. This place probably doesn't even have a proper street address.

Obi-Wan cuts the engine and gets out, dramatic cloak billowing out behind him as he walks around the car to the front of the building. Anakin gets out with much less purpose in his step; it's almost dawn and these guys are currently pissing him off. _Important._ It better be.

He wanders over to his mentor, following him. Obi-Wan unlocks the door with the key Anakin doesn't own yet and Anakin follows him in.

Inside is a broad, open space, moonlight shining in through the large windows high above them. They've made this place kind of cozy, over the years, but apparently they're going to be picking up and moving again as soon as Anakin and the other apprentices become hunters, so not _too_ cozy. In one far corner there's a large, old rug and several chairs of different fashions circled around. Bookshelves line the two walls of this corner, all dusty and half-filled with hand-written journals. In each of the mismatched chairs sits the Jedi council, and each pair of eyes fall onto mentor and apprentice as they enter.

“Sorry it took so long,” Obi-Wan says, taking his seat in a swivel chair made of peeling faux-leather. Anakin sits beside him. “There was a bit of a mishap.”

“Mishap,” Anakin snorts.

“Is everyone here, then?” one of the hunters asks, her old eyes scanning around the circle. All of the Jedi hunters look different. Some are old as hell, others young like Anakin, and he's pretty sure each of them all speak with a different accent.

“I believe so,” another remarks, nodding. “Wait a minute. Where is Yoda?”

Murmurs flit around the circle about the empty, green velvet chair. Anakin leans back in his folding, metal chair and yawns, about to shut his eyes until Obi-Wan glares at him.

“Has he run into trouble?”

“Can he even . . . fight anymore? He's so old!”

“Is it raining? He could have fallen, or crashed, or--”

_“Coming, I am!”_

The murmurs die down at the dusty call from across the warehouse. All of the heads turn again to look at the wizened old man who has entered. Yoda is hobbling over quickly, looking a bit grumpy as he always does. He's a small guy, hardly five foot and hunched over beneath his hulking suit. The thing's from the 70's, brown with plaid pants and a couple sizes too big. It's one of many similar outfits Yoda owns.

He takes his seat painstakingly in the velvet chair, sighing when he does. “Well, then. Important news, we must speak of.”

Anakin sits up straighter. He doesn't understand why Yoda always speaks in cryptic tongues worse than Obi-Wan, with half of his sentences backwards. No one seems to mind. He's kind of the leader of this whole thing. All of the hunters insist there is no true leader, but Anakin knows that if there was one, it would be Yoda. They're all waiting for him to speak.

“All around town, trouble brews,” the old man says, with a far off look in his large eyes. _Trouble brews,_ what is this, a comic book dialogue? “A new gang from the dark side, it is suspected there is. Frequent and indiscriminate, their killing is. Never before have I seen such a powerful group of . . .” Yoda shudders. _“Vampires.”_

“What should we do?” one of the hunters asks.

“It would be best . . . to double our rate of hunting,” Yoda says, nodding to himself.

Anakin wants to groan. He hopes this plan doesn't last long, because he's about to finish his apprenticeship, and as soon as he becomes a hunter, he's going to be on the double-shift too. Losing sleep prowling the streets on the search for the dark side.

“Join this hunt, the apprentices must,” Yoda continues. “Best, it would be.”

Anakin is suddenly paying much more attention to this than before. _“What?”_

The old man looks to all of the apprentices, Anakin included in the few. “I believe you are all nearly ready to be hunters. And in times such as these . . . extra hands, we need.”

“I—I'm not ready,” Anakin is saying, shaking his head. “Master Yoda, you can't do this. It's crazy.”

_“Anakin,”_ Obi-Wan hisses to him, giving him a warning look. They both know Anakin is fully ready to hunt.

The Jedi council agree to Yoda's idea of doubling the hunt. Patrols are decided and Anakin gets the north of the city from midnight to six in the morning. He wonders if he's picked for this position because the council has something against him, but then Obi-Wan is given the same time in the south of the city, so he figures it was just _luck._ He isn't going to be sleeping properly for a while.

When Obi-Wan drives him home beneath the sunrise, Anakin falls asleep passenger side.

 

Anakin wakes up to find himself in bed again. For a moment, he assumes everything had been a very vivid dream, until he realizes that he's still wearing a leather jacket and the digital clock bedside reads 1:47 P.M. His first thought is that he's missed seeing Padme at the cafe.

His second thought is that he'll need coffee anyway.

The cafe is nearly empty at the odd hour, when Anakin walks over wearing the same clothes he did to the council meeting. If anyone notices the small wooden stake secured to his belt, they don't say anything.

He orders his usual and sits at his usual seat by the wide windows. There are a few other patrons: a man on his laptop with his headphones in, speaking quietly in some kind of meeting, a middle-aged woman telling her two children to talk quieter, and Padme Amidala, sitting down across from him.

Anakin freezes mid-sip of black coffee. What is she doing? She is sitting at his table. She is looking him in the eyes as if waiting for him to speak.

“What are you doing?” she asks him instead.

“I'm having coffee.”

She looks pissed, and Anakin kind of wants to run away, kind of wants to stick around and listen to her talk more.

“What? Do you just . . . wait around here all day? Until I show up? Jesus, Anakin.”

“No! No. I just overslept this morning, so—”

“So you missed me. Right. I got it.” She nods, then looks at him seriously again. “What the hell, man? I'd love, _love,_ if you stopped stalking me. I mean, I know we went to elementary school together. Yeah, that was cool and all, but now we're both fully grown adults, and I'd appreciate it if we could act like adults. Not just children. I'm not a shiny new toy.”

“I never said you were.”

She runs her hands back through her hair, sighing and shutting her eyes for a moment. “I'm on my lunch break. Please, please, do us both a favor, and don't start coming around this time too.”

Anakin sighs and takes a drink from his coffee. It burns the whole way down but her words hurt more. “I'm sorry for any way I might have offended you.” At this, she snorts a laugh, but he keeps talking. “But . . . you must know that you're tormenting me. Your very existence, it . . .”

“Ah, Anakin, please. Stop trying to seduce me,” she says, wincing as though she's embarrassed. “Listen, I know you're a good guy. But I'm just not interested.”

She stands up to leave, and for a moment, he panics. _Say something, say something,_ he pleads with himself.

“Wait.”

She's already mid-stride, but turns to look back at him.

“If I come back tomorrow, I'll buy you coffee? Or something?”

Padme just gives him a smile that's almost solely sympathetic before leaving without giving him an answer.

Anakin stands as well after she's gone and throws away the rest of his coffee. Everyone in the shop probably just heard that exchange, and he doesn't really need to deal with that embarrassment on top of everything else.

 

Sleeping, after drinking too much coffee earlier and waking up well-rested at almost 2 in the afternoon, is an impossibility. Just a nap. Anakin just wants a nap before having to pay attention to the alarm he set for 11:30. When he rolls over with an annoyed groan, he finds that's only an hour away.

Yet after a while, drowsiness begins to tug on Anakin's bones, drawing him under into something bordering on sleep.

Except, the scream that bursts from right below his window makes him bolt upright and grab his stake.


	2. Chapter 2

 

When Anakin runs outside he's dressed in sweatpants and an old t shirt, and in his mad rush he hadn't even slid on shoes. The cracked cement sidewalk is cold underfoot and he hopes he doesn't step on anything harmful, which is a definite possibility in a place like this.

He doesn't hear the scream again, doesn't see anywhere it could have come from. There's no sound but the low buzzing of the streetlamp and his own panting breath. It gives off foggy clouds in front of his face.

There is only one thing out of place, Anakin notices. A high-heel shoe, lying on the sidewalk near a turn into an alley.

He knows that shoe, maroon faux-leather. It belongs to Padme.

At the sound of the second scream that erupts from the alley, Anakin runs. He turns the corner with such vigor he almost falls, with his stake aimed to strike. He'll fight anyone, anything. All that matters is Padme is safe.

Which she isn't. Not yet.

“I don't want your money, mortal.”

The vampire has Padme cornered. She's dressed like she was on her way back from some fancy dinner party: hair done up in pigtail buns, large fur coat over a little black dress, only one shoe. The vampire is a female with fiery red hair braided down her back. When Padme cries his name, fear in her eyes, the vampire turns to smile at him.

“Get off of her,” Anakin spits.

“Oh? She your girlfriend, honey?” The vampire laughs. “As if you could fight me off. You don't know what I am.” But when her eyes meet the two-foot long stake he holds, her haughty grin diminishes. “Where did you get that?”

“The Jedi Order. Heard of them?”

The vampire releases her grip on Padme, and she falls to the dirty ground of the alley. “What are you _doing? Run!_ ” she cries.

Anakin twirls the stake in his fingers. “You don't think I could fight you off? Come and get me.”

The vampire just laughs. “Looks like I don't have to.”

“ _Anakin behind you!”_ Padme screams.

When he whirs around, it's to find another vampire behind him, a male, twice his size, lunging directly at him. Anakin stabs him in the shoulder. Damn things are quick. He knows they're fast, but it had never really sunken in just _how_ fast.

And then there are two vampires attacking him at once, and Anakin is twisting his stake round and round trying to just kill them. They're laughing and hissing at him all at once, sounds that aren't human, not even close to human. They're terrifying and they're beautiful and Anakin wonders if those traits really are so different.

He turns and slams the back end of his stake right into the male vampire's heart. The thing lets out some kind of snarl before collapsing. That ought to do it, right? Bright red blood runs into the grooves in his stake.

There's no time to watch it's death and admire his dirty work. The female is still alive. But as soon as Anakin goes to strike, he finds Padme has struck the dark creature in the head with her shoe.

Anakin delivers the final blow, and then the alley is quiet. He looks down at the two dead vampires, shoulders heaving with his own labored breaths, watching as they slowly become white dust before his very eyes.

“You . . . you just . . .” Padme is looking at him in baffled horror.

Anakin tips his head toward the building. “I live right in there. I heard you scream.”

“No, I . . . Were those _vampires?_ ”

“Oh. Yeah. Part of the dark side, as we hunters call it. It's a good name for anything shady and evil we have to get rid of.”

She grips her head in her hand. “Oh my God, you're a vampire hunter. Anakin Skywalker. You. You hunt vampires. How long have you . . . ?”

He shrugs. “A vampire attacked me when I was nine. A Jedi hunter saved me and I've kind of been training ever since.”

“Oh my God,” she repeats, shaking her head. The two vampires have turned completely to dust now. “You saved my life.”

“Yeah. Say your thank-yous or whatever. Need me to drive you home?” Is she injured? No, she doesn't look injured. Her neck is intact on either side and her movements seem normal. That might be due to adrenaline, though.

“Thank you,” she says quickly. Her dark eyes linger on the piles of dust. “I can't . . . believe this.”

 

 

 

Anakin drives her home, speeding through the city in the car Obi-Wan helped him pay for. She looks vaguely afraid, probably because of how fast they're going, but not nearly as afraid as she did in the alley. Albeit, she's calmed down. Anakin just can't wait to brag about his kill to the rest of the council, and that's when he remembers he's supposed to be on patrol right about now. Whatever. It can wait until he sees Padme safely home.

He drops her off in front of a more expensive apartment complex, where she lives with her rich parents. She smiles at him when she leaves, and he's just glad to see she's no longer in shock.

The first thing Padme said when they got in the car was, _“this still doesn't mean I'm going on a date with you.”_ The last thing she said as she left was, “ _you should come by the shop for lunch tomorrow,”_ which is good enough for him.

He goes on the ridiculous patrol with his stake already blood-stained.

 

 

 

The patrol wasn't bad. Really, it wasn't. He sat on the top of a tall office building like some kind of super villain, watching from the high point the darkened streets below. It gave him a perfect view, which was better than wandering up and down the street for six hours.

But having a completely destroyed sleep schedule meant he was sleeping until one in the afternoon yet again. Though he did make sure to wake up in time to meet Padme at the cafe.

The shop is much more crowded than yesterday, bustling even. Anakin prefers this, mostly because he knows Padme is going to start asking about the dark side, and he doesn't want to explain that where his voice will carry.

“So, you hunt vampires.”

Padme says this once she's seated across from him at a little table near the window in the back, and they're each comfortable with their coffee. Anakin drinks his black and with too much sugar. Padme gets the most expensive thing on the menu.

He shushes her, but he's smiling a bit, admittedly cockily. “I do,” he answers. “I'm sorry. I never wanted you to find out, but I . . . Well, I heard you scream.”

“You recognized my screaming?”

Well, no. “I did.”

She narrows her eyes with a smile dancing on the border of sweet and sly. She takes a sip of her coffee through the green straw. While she drinks, her dark eyes search his face, and Anakin just leans on his elbow and meets her gaze. She sets the cup down and says,

“I want to know everything.”

“Everything?”

“ _Everything._ ”

Anakin leans forward a bit closer, murmuring, “I'm really not supposed to tell you. I shouldn't have even let you know of the dark side. But it was unavoidable. I couldn't let you die.”

Padme shakes her head, eyes flitting away in thought. “In the alley, you mentioned something about the . . Jedi? The Jedi Order.”

“Right, them.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “I'm kind of in a pretty intense apprenticeship.”

“I thought you went to that trade school on the other side of town?”

“Do I _really_ look like the kind of guy trying to be an electrician?”

She chuckles. “Well, vampire-hunter wouldn't be my first impression of you, either.”

“Looks can be deceiving. I've been doing this since fourth grade.”

Her eyes go wide. “Fourth _grade?_ ”

“I told you I was first attacked when I was nine. But I wasn't exactly killing vampires back then,” he explains. He doesn't mention that the vampires he killed last night were his first.

“This is . . . insane!” She begins laughing, smiling wildly. “This the kind of thing . . . it's all in the movies. In books. Not real life.”

“Welcome to real life, then. It really is all like the movies. Cool action sequences, dramatic dialogue . . .” He nudges her foot and grins. “Romance . . . and the dark side. Except, Hollywood does always manage to get one thing wrong.”

Her eyes are narrowed again. “What's that?”

But his playful grin is gone, and instead he looks down at his coffee with a grimace. “There aren't always happy endings.”

 

 

 

While the first patrol was fine and everything, by the time Anakin sets off to sit in vigil at his post, he'd still rather be talking to Padme again. They'd traded numbers and everything, either because she wanted to keep in touch, or because she had just found out about the dark side and felt better with the number of a hunter in her phone. Either way, Anakin sends her a text while sitting on the office building roof, cold wind stirring his too-long hair.

 

**Message Sent 12:25 A.M.:**

Hey Are You Awake?

 

**PADME!!! 12:26 A.M.:**

Are u nocturnal?  
Im trying to sleep

 

Oh, right. Anakin forgot people have normal sleeping schedules. His has been so messed up for so long, even before the patrols were set.

 

**Message Sent 12:26 A.M.:**

Shit I'm Sorry.

 

**PADME!!! 12:30 A.M.:**

Its ok! be safe out there tonight

 

**Message Sent 12:30 A.M.:**

I Always Am.

 

“I see Yoda's patrol truly is laughable, after all.”

Anakin shoots to his feet, whirring around to face the voice that comes from behind him on the rooftop.

The man standing a few feet away laughs politely, stepping forward. He's white-haired, white-bearded, and his eyes are the crisp gold of a vampire. “You're not even watching over anything but that girl through your cellphone.”

Anakin pockets his phone and in the same movement, pulls out his stake. “You underestimate me, vampire.”

“ _Vampire,”_ the creature scoffs. “Hardly a polite name. You may call me Count Dooku, Anakin Skywalker.”

Anakin doesn't ask how he knows his name. He rolls his eyes. “ _Count Dooku?_ What kind of name is that? Modeling after Count Dracula?”

He's not simply walking toward him, Anakin realizes, but the vampire is walking around him, circling him and slowly moving in. Stalking his prey.

Anakin twists his stake around in his hand, testing his grip. “Come on and get me, Count. I already killed two of your kind last night.”

“Yes, you did. But there are many more that work for me. Those two were a bit radical for my taste, anyhow. I would have had them offed, sooner or later,” the vampire sighs.

Anakin scowls. “You're the leader? You're the one behind all of this?”

“Yes, I am. It is quite a prestigious position. Something you, I'm afraid, could never dream of having.” From his neatly tailored coat, the count pulls out a long metal rod. Either end are sharpened and it looks like a Jedi hunter's stake.

The vampire doesn't lunge at Anakin with a snarling set of fangs. He leaps forward, faster than the other vampires that had attacked Padme, and then their's silver metal whirring past Anakin's face.

Anakin jumps aside, ducking before blocking the next attack with his stake.

“Why not use your fangs?” he taunts. “Afraid of getting a little blood on your coat?” He strikes with his stake.

The Count blocks. “I would find it to be very medieval. Uncivilized.” He strikes again, nicking Anakin's shoulder and he grits his teeth. “Much like your own fighting style.”

“I'm trained in the ways of the Jedi,” he spits, pain tinting the words. He realizes suddenly that Dooku has backed him up against the ledge of the roof. Another step back and he'll be leaning against it. “I'm nothing like the dark side.”

“Ah, but you have all the fear, the rage.” When the vampire attacks again, he's got Anakin pressed dangerously close to being pushed over the edge of the roof. “The recklessness. Perhaps you would have made a better vampire than a _Jedi_.”

“ _Shut up!”_ he grits out, trying to push against him. But the vampire's strength is much too strong to overpower.

Dooku knocks the stake out of his hand, and it flies off the roof, landing somewhere in the street below.

Well, shit.

And then the metal stake is driven into his arm, stabbing clean through his coat, through his flesh. The pain blossoms as the Count rips the stake away and Anakin is screaming shortly before dropping to his knees.

The vampire is laughing, stepping away. He seems to be on the verge of saying something, but a different voice fills in, crying out from across the roof.

“ _Anakin!_ ”

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin moans. He can feel blood coating the inside of his jacket sleeve, sickeningly warm. Pain radiates from his arm, enough to blur his vision as he tries to stumble to his feet.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is running over across the roof. Blood already stains his white leather jacket he wears so often, spattered across the front. In either of his hands is a stake, and one of them is Anakin's. He holds one defensively in front of himself, the other raised and aimed to strike at Dooku.

But Anakin doesn't see what happens. The vampire kicks him hard enough to send him slamming back down against the concrete roof. It scrapes against his face and sends his vision all black for a minute.

When he looks up from where he lies, he finds the blurry image of Obi-Wan locked in a fight that's going too fast for Anakin to keep up with. Obi-Wan fights like a Jedi. A real Jedi. Precise skill, the right amount of sly trickery, practiced jabs with each of the stakes. Maybe the Count was right. Maybe Anakin does fight like a vampire.

The very thought makes him feel ill. That, or it's his swimming head.

Metal flashes and fresh, bright red opens up against Obi-Wan's arm and he shouts. He's hardly distracted by the wound, but Dooku is _fast._ A similar wound gashes against Obi-Wan's leg and he falls back against the railing of the roof, face contorted in pain.

Dooku holds his metal stake out as if he were waiting for the call of _yield! yield!_ But Obi-Wan would never yield. The vampire says something but Anakin's ears are ringing and he's on the verge of loosing consciousness. After that, Dooku is gone.

Obi-Wan limps over to Anakin, tucking the stakes away. “Let's get out of here,” he says, kneeling down with a grunt of pain.

“ _I had him!_ ” Anakin manages to groan. His voice is torn with pain and rage.

Obi-Wan ignores this, gathering him into his arms. Anakin hardly notices. He leans the scraped side of his face against his mentor's blood-stained jacket, and when he shuts his eyes, they stay shut.

 

 

 

He wakes up to soft light. Soft, white morning light fading in through thin curtains that lead to a balcony. His head is pounding and he squints against the light at first, and when he lifts his arm, sharp pain shoots up to his shoulder causing the memories from the previous night to return. Shit. Where is he? What happened to Dooku? Where is Obi-Wan?

He's lying in a bed that's too soft. The sheets are plain white as the large comforter is. Anakin must be too used to sleeping in his lumpy twin-sized bed, because this is the most comfortable place he can recall waking up in a while. Whose bed is this?

There's talking coming from the other room. Only one voice, conversing. Someone on the phone most likely. Anakin can't make out the muffled words, but he knows the voice well enough. He should have known Obi-Wan would take him back to his posh apartment.

Music is playing faintly as well, that old rock Obi-Wan listens to. Anakin doesn't know the artist. They all kind of sound alike. But eventually the talking stops, and Anakin's eyes adjust to the daylight, and then the door to the large bedroom opens.

“Good. You're awake,” the man says quietly, scratching his beard. “I suspected you might have had a minor concussion.”

Which reminds Anakin his head is still pounding, in case he forgot for even a second. He doesn't bother sitting up. He doesn't want to move. His is dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants which is by far the most casual Anakin has ever seen him.

“What happened to him? What happened to the vampire? Count Dooku?”

“We can talk about it in the kitchen,” he says. “I made breakfast.”

So Anakin hauls himself to his feet and follows Obi-Wan through his apartment, realizing his mentor is walking with a heavy limp. More memories of last night return, of the two gashes cut into Obi-Wan's arm and leg. Anakin sits down at the table and a plate of food is set in front of him. Plain, whole-grain toast.

“This is just toast.”

Obi-Wan shrugs a shoulder. “There's coffee.” He sets two mugs down on the table before sitting down as well with a sigh. When Anakin takes a drink, it's black and too sweet. Just the way he's always liked it. He begins nibbling on the toast.

“Who were you talking to?” he asks after a minute.

Obi-Wan is leaning on his good arm, against his elbow, looking off somewhere else beyond the clean hard-wood floors. “Yoda,” he answers. “I told him about Count Dooku. Apparently Yoda had a run in with him later that night, but he escaped. He's leading the vampires.”

“That's what he tried telling me,” Anakin mumbles into his coffee. “Dooku's our target, then. If we get rid of him, the rest of his followers will be disjointed.”

Obi-Wan smiles wanly. “I wish it were that easy. Yoda's hired someone to help personally hunt Dooku himself. He calls himself Darth Sidious.”

Anakin snorts, rolling his eyes. “Sounds dramatic.”

“According to Yoda, most people just call him Pal.”

“So what can this guy do that we can't?”

“He's powerful, Anakin. I've . . . only met him once before.” He's frowning. “Something in him, I . . . I don't trust it.” He shakes his head. “Ah, it's probably nothing. We're lucky to have his help.”

“I could have killed him myself. Last night,” Anakin grumbles. Maybe. If he hadn't been stabbed and if he hadn't lost his damn stake. He's been training for _years_ and no way in _hell_ is Anakin going to stand to be defeated by a guy named _Count_ _Dooku._

“You must not always rush toward victory,” Obi-Wan warns, and Anakin fights the urge to roll his eyes again. “You'll get yourself killed that way.” A darker frown touches his face, one that reaches his eyes that are still far away. “I couldn't stand to see that.”

Anakin sets down what's left of his toast back on the plate, suddenly no longer hungry. The words sit heavy in his stomach, mixing with the coffee and making him ill. Obi-Wan had always cared deeply for him, always protected him, ever since the first night Anakin had found the dark side.

“Neither of us are in any shape for the patrol tonight,” he says, to change the subject.

“We'll have to manage. It isn't like there's a ready supply of vampire hunters to watch over the town.” Obi-Wan sits up straighter, looking at Anakin at last. “If we're lucky, it will be a quiet night.”

Anakin drinks the rest of his coffee and stands. “I'm going outside,” he mumbles, remembering the balcony he saw in the bedroom. He needs fresh air. His head feels like it might explode.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, stopping him. When he turns back to look at his mentor, he finds his eyes are suddenly pleading behind their stern facade. “Please be careful tonight. For your sake and mine.”

_For your sake and mine._

Anakin leaves the room without answering.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shit is gonna get evn more rekt


	3. Chapter 3

Anakin's arm is screaming in pain and he's pretty sure it's bleeding again when he steps back from the vampire corpses in front of him, catching his breath. Three at once, this time, and all dead by his hand. He's better than the Jedi give him credit for. Why won't they make him a hunter already?

He slides the bloody stake away at his belt and runs an equally soiled hand through his hair, which is a mess as usual.

“That was quite an impressive fight.”

Anakin recognizes the voice that comes from the end of the shadowed alley, but still spins around with his stake in hand once again.

And he recognizes the man who walks toward him. Anakin's seen him a few times before, talked to him, too.

“You've improved, I see,” the old man says, smiling warmly. He's a pretty small guy, like you could definitely mug him. But like Yoda, Anakin's sure he can kick ass. In fact, he _knows_ Palpatine can kick ass, because that's exactly what Yoda hired him to do, right? He's dressed in the most dapper suit in the city, too.

“Palpat— _Pal._ Yeah. Hi,” Anakin says. He wipes the sweat off his forehead, probably leaving a streak of dead blood. God, his arm is killing him.

“Yoda has assigned you to the northern portion of the city?”

“Midnight to six,” he sighs. “What are you doing awake?”

The old hunter only smiles wider. “I prefer the nocturnal hours,” he says. “Such a lifestyle allows me to better understand the dark side... these creatures of the night...”

Why would anyone _want_ to understand the dark side? “I guess so.”

Palpatine's smile is only a little creepy, but Anakin blames it on the dim lighting of the alley casting eery, elongated shadows. “The dark side does hold some appeal, wouldn't you agree?”

“Not really, no.”

“No? Well, I suppose you have yet to learn...” Palpatine looks off at the crescent moon overhead. “It is uncommon for a Jedi hunter not to be eventually... tempted.”

Anakin's frowning, looking closely at the old man. Something feels off about him, something he realizes now that he's always felt when near him in the past. “Not me,” he mutters.

“No, of course not you, Anakin.” He says this kindly and it makes Anakin cringe. Not kindly. It's all condescending. How can he make this conversation end faster? Say he needs to get back to work, probably. But this guy's still talking. “Yet... you failed to kill Count Dooku.” Palpatine's shaking his head in disappointment.

And then he can feel himself frowning deeper. What the hell did that have to do with anything? Dooku was the _leader_ of the vampires in the city, and not even _Yoda_ had been able to kill him. That had to say something. “What are you saying?” he hisses, grit in his voice coming from the weight of exhaustion and pain and now annoyance turned to anger.

Yet Palpatine still looks perfectly smug, as if Anakin isn't ready to storm out of the alley. Or punch him in his wrinkly face. “The side of the light is... weak, compared to the dark. In the dark side, one is able to reach their full potential. Heightened senses... enhanced speed, strength... _Immortality._ ” When his eyes meet Anakin's, he swears for a second, they're vampire gold. It's the light, and Anakin's tired. Yoda wouldn't hire a vampire.

“The side of the light,” he continues, “is almost pitiful. You go through years of training to learn how to fight with a piece of wood.”

“It's _more_ than that!”

The old man looks shocked. Almost. “Have I angered you?” And then that smile again. “I've remembered that about you, Anakin. You have such fire in you! Such anger! And what use is it to you, now? A Jedi apprentice, still.” He takes a few steps forward, and Anakin represses the urge to step back. “Has anyone ever told you, that you fight like a vampire?”

“Stop it!” he exclaims. “You're talking like... like you _are_ of the dark side!”

“It's taken me many years to amass the power that I have, to become the renowned hunter, so renowned even Yoda has hired my services,” Palpatine says. “I have not done such by staying on the path of the _Jedi._ ” He spits this name like it's a curse, and Anakin's grip on his stake sweats.

“You're a vampire,” he says quietly, and he's definitely taking a step away now, but he holds his stake up as a threat. Yes, gold eyes. Vampire gold. He can see them clearly now, gleaming moonlight among the shadows. He can see the immortal pallor of his old face, wrinkles and creases frozen in time.

“Yes, Anakin, but listen... Would you prefer to stay in the Jedi, weakened and locked? Or would you increase your power? Become the hunter you are _meant_ to be?”

“Don't fucking talk about my destiny, old man. I'm never joining the dark side.”

And Palpatine's shaking his head sadly, sighing through his nose. It's all so fake and Anakin doesn't know why he hasn't killed him yet. His hand holding the stake is both poised to strike and frozen. How the _hell_ hadn't Yoda realized he was a vampire?

“It is a shame...,” the vampire says, “that you would refuse to save the one you love from her doom.”

Anakin grits his teeth so hard they hurt. “What the hell do you know about Padme?”

“Oh, nothing, really. But I suppose she does smell delightful to certain dark creatures...”

“No. No, fuck you.” Anakin's backing away, not taking his eyes off Palpatine and backing out of the alley. “I'm telling the Jedi what you are.”

“Don't do it Anakin!” It sounds like a warning, not a plea.

There's darkness in the old man's darkened eyes and it makes Anakin feel sick. When he turns around, he runs. He runs as fast as he can, booted feet slamming against the sidewalk but he hardly feels fatigued, adrenaline pumping through his limbs.

Padme. What is Palpatine going to do to Padme? Kill her? Drain her blood? No, Anakin will stop him. _Someone_ will stop him.

He's pace has slowed when he runs up the stairs to his apartment. It's five a.m. He can take the night off early. He slams the door behind himself, drops his stake on the kitchen counter, and immediately throws up into the sink. This is ridiculous. He didn't sign up for this twisted shit when he joined the Jedi. He signed up for hunting bad guys, knowing the villain, but god, it wasn't like that at all. Even _Yoda,_ his _leader,_ had been fooled.

His hands are shaking when he pushes them back through his hair, elbows leaning on the counter while he gasps in breaths. Eventually he reaches for his cellphone, hands still stained with dead blood, and he should probably call Yoda, but he's punching in Obi-Wan Kenobi's number.

 

 

 

Anakin opens the door when Obi-Wan knocks in the short pattern they came up with years ago. His eyes immediately widen.

“What happened?” he asks, stepping inside.

Anakin shuts the door and leans heavily against it. He'd told Obi-Wan to come over right away, not explaining why. And he doesn't know why exactly he didn't explain over the phone, instead making his mentor drive across town at nearly six a.m. Maybe he just wanted someone with him. Which means he's weak as hell.

“Palpatine is a vampire,” he says in a rush of words.

Obi-Wan sighs, exhaling the immediate tension that creased his brow. He slides off the ridiculous brown cloak, draping it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, and leans against the counter. He shakes his head. “I knew there was something... not right about that man. I should have known.”

Anakin walked toward him, only to pace, fighting the urge to begin pacing around the small kitchen area. “ _Yoda_ didn't even know, Obi-Wan. Yoda!”

Obi-Wan meets Anakin's eyes, the worry returning to his face. “Yoda is only human, just like you and I... He may be our leader, but mistakes are what make us human.”

Anakin is gritting his teeth, gripping the edge of the small kitchen table in one hand. “Palpatine was talking about the dark side,” he mutters. His fingers dig against the wood so hard they hurt. “I should have killed him! I ran away like a coward!” God, is weak all he is? All he'll ever be? Maybe Palpatine was right about that much. Maybe the light side _is_ weak.

“Sometimes, running away is the best thing we can do,” Obi-Wan says. God damn his bullshit wisdom, sometimes. Anakin just wants to kick the wall. “If you tried to fight, he would have killed you...” Obi-Wan doesn't need to add the “ _or worse”_ for Anakin to still hear it lingering in the air. Or worse. Or Anakin could have ended up joining the dark side.

No.

No, Anakin would have defeated him. He would have left that vampire in the alley as nothing but dust, like those other three.

“We're supposed to be _trained hunters,_ ” Anakin says lowly. “We're supposed to be able to kill vampires when they attack us! Not the other way around.”

There's a sad look in Obi-Wan's eyes then, and Anakin realizes he can't look at him. Not like that. “Sometimes,” Obi-Wan says, “the dark side is just more powerful. But there is always a way. In the end, the light will always be stronger. Remember that, Anakin, when Palpatine tries to persuade you to the dark side.”

Anakin sits down at the table, head in his hands. “This is exhausting,” he mumbles.

He doesn't realize Obi-Wan's moved across the kitchen until his hand rests between Anakin's shoulderblades. He relaxes his shoulders just slightly. “How are you and Padme?” he asks. He's trying to distract him, Anakin knows.

It doesn't work. His thoughts are a raging flood. “Palpatine said something was going to happen to her... He's going to kill her. Or something, Obi-Wan.”

“The Jedi exist to protect innocents from the dark side.” His fingers are rubbing circles into Anakin's back.

“No. You're wrong,” he says. “When Padme was attacked, no one was there but me. If I hadn't heard her scream...”

“But you did.”

“So, what?”

“So, you were the one to save her. And you're a Jedi, aren't you?”

Anakin laughs so suddenly he startles himself. He turns to look back at his mentor, who is looking down at him with those fucking sad eyes. “I'm your fucking _apprentice._ ” Why won't they make him a hunter? _Why?_

“You're more than that.” His eyes flit away, and as soon as his hand leaves Anakin's back, he misses it. “Get some rest, Anakin.”

 

 

 

“I've killed more vampires this week than I have in my life. Not to scare you, or anything.”

Anakin's walking with Padme down the dark streets of the city, on the way back to his apartment. They'd gone out to some restaurant, split the check, and now it was too cold to be walking the six blocks home.

“It's sort of comforting,” Padme answers. She's walking quickly beside him, head bowed against the cold wind with her hands shoved deep in her coat pockets. “There's danger, but there are also the Jedi. You'll help keep people safe. That's all that matters to me.”

Anakin leads her up to his apartment, letting her in first and shutting the door slowly behind them, which only makes it creak louder.

“I know it's not very impressive,” he says, sliding his jacket off and throwing it over the arm of the couch. Padme follows suit. “But Obi-Wan pays the rent, so I've been trying to be thankful, you know?”

She smiles, sitting down on the couch. “I think it's great. It's got a certain charm.”

Anakin shrugs and sits down heavily across from her, drawing his legs up onto the cushions. “Yeah, I guess.”

“You and Obi-Wan must be good friends,” she comments, looking around the flat.

Anakin hugs his arms around his knees that are drawn up to his chest. “I've known him almost as long as I've known you. Maybe better. More intimately.” He casts his gaze downward at some unimportant corner of the room, anywhere but Padme. “I'm not sure where Obi-Wan and I will even stand in the future...” He has a feeling it will be nowhere good.

He doesn't need to look at her to know the concern that must be lining her face. “Has something happened between you two?”

Anakin shakes his head, leaning it against his folded arms. “No, not between us,” he mumbles. “Just me.” His eyes are burning. He grits his teeth and wishes for it to stop.

Padme moves closer to him, resting her hand gently on his arm. He glances up at her. Her brows are furrowed with worry, such sincerity in her eyes. God, she really likes him, doesn't she? “What happened?”

“Have you ever...” No. He looks away again, can't look her in the eyes as he chokes back tears, as he murmurs this. “Wanted something... so _bad..._ but you know you shouldn't?”

Her grip on her arm is light, too light, _weak._ She's weak and mortal and vulnerable, and so is Anakin. Her hand moves up into his hair and when he looks at her, when he meets her eyes, he realizes he's crying. He's fucking crying. He has Padme Amidala sitting on his couch and all he can think of is _vampires._ Of the Jedi. Of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the disappointment, the _pain_ in his eyes Anakin knows he'll see if he follows Palpatine. He can't do it. He has to do it. They're plotting Padme's death.

When Padme kisses him on the lips, he hardly even notices.

But when he does, he kisses her harder. He wraps his arms around her and unfolds his legs, until she's lying beneath him across the couch. Her breath is short, disjointed. Her cheeks are flushed and Anakin's cheeks are damp but she's pulling off his shirt, tossing it onto the floor.

“What happened to your arm?” Padme asks breathily, noting the bandages.

The question catches him off-guard. “What? Oh. Nothing. It was a vampire.”

Her eyes widen so he kisses her again, on the neck. He does this for a few minutes, trying to listen for all the small gasps she makes, but she sounds so far away. Anakin lays his head against her chest. “Well... Goodnight.”

“Oh,” she breathes. “Okay. Goodnight, Ani.”

No, he's not going out again tonight. It's nearly midnight and he's supposed to be going out to his god damn post in the north of the city, but instead, he shuts his eyes and listens to the slowing of Padme's heart. He'll deal with the Jedi later.

 

 

 

It feels like it should be too cold for rain. It hits Anakin like ice, soaking his hair, sliding down the faux leather of his jacket as he walks down the empty street. He should feel cold. He feels close to nothing.

Padme left that morning. What will it be like, the next time he sees her? Will she know? Will she run away? Will he be able to explain? Maybe she wouldn't even notice the coldness of his touch, the gold sheen to his eyes. She could blame it on the light like Anakin did when he saw Palpatine.

He's headed back to that alley, now. The moon is new and he's ready to end it all.

His phone vibrates from his pocket, a steady beat indicating someone is calling him. He almost ignores it, but answers after the sixth ring. He pauses at a street corner, wondering if the rain will harm his phone.

“ _Anakin!_ ”

It's Obi-Wan, his voice shouting from the other line. The reception is pretty bad, or it's water finding its way into the speaker.

“What?” he mumbles into the phone.

“ _What are you doing? Padme called me.”_

“How the hell did she get your number?” Anakin snaps.

“ _She said she got it from your phone while you were asleep.”_ Damn it. _“She said you're acting strange. She's worried and didn't know who to talk to. What's happening, Anakin?”_

“Nothing!” he shouts. “Leave me alone! You always try to help me, Obi-Wan, but you can't. You can't help me.

“ _Would you stop_ whining _and just answer me?”_ the man exclaims in exasperation. “ _I'm worried about you.”_

Anakin grits his teeth and hisses, “I don't care.” He doesn't hang up. He pulls the phone away from his face and wishes he could crush it in his hands. He settles for dropping it on the wet side-walk and walking away.

The familiar alley looks darker than it did the last time he was there, or maybe it's the lack of light from the moon. But the silhouette standing at the end, expensive cane in hand, is there among the shadows.

“Alright,” Anakin calls out to it. His voice is trembling but not as much as his hands. He clenches them into fists. His stake is under his pillow at home. “You got me. Happy? Are you happy?”

The silhouette turns. Not the dapper suit to match the cane. A cloak, a black cloak. And the old vampire's smiling face beneath. “Welcome to the dark side, Anakin Skywalker.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did i mention im posting all of this unedited?? i am a rebel,


	4. Chapter 4

He pushes his fingers through the dirt, and sees for the first time.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Obi-Wan's head is pounding. It's too early, even for him, but sleep was impossible. Ever since the call last night that left Obi-Wan yelling Anakin's name into the phone, wondering if he'd dropped it into the street. He probably did.

Obi-Wan leans against the white railing of the small balcony of his apartment. His arms are folded against it, hand hugging a hot mug of coffee. The air is cold and heavy with the dampness after the rain, but it tastes fresh—as fresh as city air can be—and he hopes it will give him some kind of clarity.

It doesn't. He'd memorized the girl—Padme's—number as soon as she'd texted him early yesterday morning. _He's mentioned you a lot,_ she had said. _I didn't know who else to talk to about him._ Obi-Wan had called her without writing back to the text. He hates texting. Writing jumbles his thoughts, slows them. He's a quick thinker with slow thumbs.

He wants to drop by Anakin's flat, to see him in person, to make sure he's alright. But he knows he shouldn't. He smothers Anakin enough as it is. And he should stop it, he _really_ should put some distance between them, at least make an _effort,_ for god's sake!

But Obi-Wan loves Anakin too much for his own good. It makes his chest ache and he takes a drink of the coffee. It's black, bitter. He forgot to put anything in it.

Looking out at the city that is still waking up, still just beginning to move in the morning fog, he hopes he sees Anakin somewhere below. Just a reminder that he's still okay, still _alive._ Obi-Wan worries too much, truly. There will be a meeting with the Jedi in the evening. He'll see Anakin then. Everything will be fine

When he goes back inside, sitting alone in the middle of his bed, he texts Padme without remembering how early it is.

 

**Message Sent 6:38 A.M.:**

Have you heard from him?

 

**Anakin's gf 6:39 A.M.:**

nope

 

**Message Sent 6:42 A.M.:**

I'll see him tonight. Will tell you how it goes.

 

**Anakin's gf 6:44 A.M.:**

you really like him dont you?

 

His thumbs hover over the glowing keyboard until the screen goes dim, looking at the words. What was that supposed to mean?

 

**Message Sent 6:55 A.M.:**

What?

 

 **Anakin's gf 6:58 A.M.:  
** just a guess from what he's told me, and how u sounded last night

 

Had Obi-Wan's affections _really_ been that obvious? He's trying to think of how the hell to respond to Anakin's _girlfriend_ asking him this, but another text buzzes in.

 

**Anakin's gf 7:02 A.M.:**

I mean like u totally have crushes on each other right?

 

His face heats up and he immediately types back a response, deletes it, begins to type a new one, but Padme's already sent another message.

 

**Anakin's gf 7:08 A.M.:**

its cool tho. Im pretty sure he likes you more than me, and he borderline stalked me for a few months. I gtg to class bye!

 

Obi-Wan drops his phone onto the bed and it disappears into the fluffy white comforter. He runs his hands back into his hand, sighing. What is this? High school? He retrieves his phone and reads over the texts again, and he's reminded suddenly of how much his head hurts. He gets up to make more coffee, figuring it'll be all that keeps him going today.

 

 

 

The street is dark as ever beneath the quickly setting sun. A plastic bag blows across the cracked asphalt like a tumbleweed in the desert and Obi-Wan digs out his key, about to unlock the door to the warehouse, when it swings open inwardly before he can touch the knob.

In the doorway stands one of the Jedi, probably twice his age. She looks at him with raised brows. “You're late. Again.”

Obi-Wan tries to smile apologetically. “I know. I...” _I fell asleep._ “I'm sorry.”

“It's alright, just come inside,” the woman says, and he follows her in. They head back to the area of the warehouse with all of the chairs set up, past the shelves and crates of various Jedi weapons and supplies. Everyone is already there, even Yoda.

“Missing, Anakin is,” Yoda notes, when Obi-Wan sits down beside the only empty chair. Damn it. God damn it. He was counting on his apprentice being there, yet his absence doesn't surprise him.

“I haven't heard from him, Master Yoda,” Obi-Wan says gravely. “Not since I called him briefly last night. I have reason to believe he might be in danger.”

“Danger, I believe he has brought on himself,” Yoda says, addressing the whole council. “What Anakin is doing, we cannot know, but still in town, he is. Found, Count Dooku's body was last night, half turned to ash.”

The simultaneous gasp of the Jedi resonates, electrifying the air, and Obi-Wan's eyes widen.

“Count Dooku doesn't even lead the dark side. He was just a figurehead!” one of the apprentices cries.

Yoda nods solemnly. He had told the council earlier in the week of Palpatine's true allegiances. “But a powerful enemy, he was. Good he is dead, it is.”

“Is it known how he died, Master Yoda?” Obi-Wan asks.

“With a Jedi stake through the heart, Dooku was found,” Yoda answers. “Why it was left behind, I do not know...” He lowers his eyes. “Belonged to Anakin Skywalker, it did.”

Obi-Wan leans his elbow against the arm of his chair, head resting in his hand. What the hell is Anakin doing? He killed Dooku, which means he's still on their side. Yet he didn't come to the meeting, and after everything he'd said to Padme and to Obi-Wan himself... None of it makes sense. Yoda is saying something else.

“Interesting, were Dooku's wounds. Torn off, both of his arms were, and bites wounds marred his body.” Yoda is looking only at Obi-Wan, now. “A fight between two vampires, it had been.”

“What happened with the other?” Obi-Wan asks, mind suddenly turning faster and faster. “Did Anakin kill it as well?” Why had it turned against Dooku? Had it rebelled? Certainly there have to be vampires who didn't like Dooku, maybe even ones who wanted him dead.

“To the dark side I believe, Anakin has gone.”

No. No that's impossible. Anakin would never switch to the dark side, that wouldn't be the man Obi-Wan knows. Or rather, that he knew.

Oh, god, he has to find Anakin. He's not a vampire, he's _not._ All of the eyes in the council are suddenly on Obi-Wan, waiting for him to say something, waiting for him to defend Anakin. But he can't. He can't breathe. Everything makes too much sense, the more the truth sinks in.

Obi-Wan leaves so quickly he almost trips over the leg of the chair beside him. It takes all the will he can muster not to run out of the warehouse, but as soon as he shuts the door behind himself, he runs to his car.

He drives to Anakin's apartment faster than he's probably ever gone in the city, as fast as he can manage, all with his cellphone tucked between his shoulder and his ear.

“Come on, Anakin...”

Voicemail, each time.

He doesn't smoke, he hasn't in years, but he lights that cigarette he's kept in the back of the glove-box and takes a deep, bitter drag.

He's probably overreacting. What proof is there that Anakin's a vampire? A, his questionable, moody behavior. But it's Anakin, how questionable can that be for him? B, his stake left in Dooku's corpse. Anakin was unable to kill Dooku on his own just a few days ago. He couldn't have taken him on again so soon. If he were a vampire, it would allow him to kill Dooku, even rip his limbs off. And why would he have left his stake behind, if not to make some kind of message? C, the vampire bite marks in what remained of Dooku. Maybe Anakin had just made some kind of vampire acquaintance that had done the deed.

Obi-Wan's trying not to run up the stairs to Anakin's flat. But when he knocks on the door, it falls open, not even shut fully. The apartment is empty.

He texts Padme as soon as he's back in his car. He doubts she'll answer a call, especially if she's with Anakin, which hopefully she is.

 

**Message Sent 7:23 P.M.:**

Do you know where Anakin is?

 

Every minute that she doesn't write back feels like an hour trickling by, while Obi-Wan sits in his car and listens to the radio host talk quietly.

 

**Anakin's gf 7:30 P.M.:**

he's driving me across town rn

 

A second text, before he can jump to reply:

 

**Anakin's gf 7:30 P.M.:**

he seems different, obi-wan. I gtg

 

Obi-Wan throws his phone aside onto the passenger seat and starts the engine with a roar too loud for the quiet street. Across town... the only thing across town of importance is the warehouse, where the meeting has probably already ended. Why would Anakin be taking Padme there?

 

 

 

The radio is so loud. It might be Anakin's favorite aspect of the dark side, the fact he can hear _everything._ When he first awoke from the... _change,_ with the healed wounds on his neck matching his childhood scars, he'd dug his way out of where he'd been buried in the ground by Palpatine. The vampire didn't explain why it was a necessary step. Didn't explain anything, really. Anakin was covered in dirt and was somewhere far away from the city, in the countryside. And he heard the clear chirping of crickets, of the wind buffeting the long grass of the field he'd been buried in as if dead. He could hear his heart, dead and still beating a steady, low rumbling rhythm in his chest.

Anakin had stolen a car and found his way back to the city, all of the windows rolled down. The air was freezing but it wasn't unpleasant. There was much more to listen to in the city. People talking, voices he could hear clearly from behind walled buildings, tires turning on wet asphalt, engines revving, music from various shops. He'd killed Dooku that night. Wanting Dooku dead was one of the only things Palpatine explained to him.

Now he's driving with Padme on his second night reborn into darkness, in his own car, and he doesn't bother asking her if the music is too loud. The slow guitar riffs are probably deafening and he's not turning it down.

She's texting, and even with the quickest flit of his eyes toward her phone, he can read every word. She's talking to Obi-Wan. He asked about Anakin. What the hell does he want? Anakin is done with Obi-Wan, done with the Jedi, done with everything.

He finally turns down the song so he can speak. “I don't need you to come with me,” he mutters.

She's relieved he changed the volume, he can _sense_ it about her. “I want to,” she insists. Her heart rate increases when she answers.

“You don't need to see what I'm going to do.” He has a container of gasoline in the trunk and too many packs of matches in his pocket. He's never committed arson before. Now seems like a great time to start.

“And just what is that, Anakin?” she snaps. Heart rate still accelerating. “Is this how you normally are? Cryptic and moody? Was the whole charming hero thing all a... mask?”

“What are you talking about?” he hisses, jaw clenched. He's scowling. “I haven't changed. I've been enlightened.” Her phone rings and he wants to rip it out of her hands, something. “Stop talking to Obi-Wan!” he shouts.

“How did you know I was texting him?” she shouts back just as loud, challenging him.

He adjusts himself in the seat so he can face her, both hands still on the steering wheel. “It doesn't matter... I'm sorry. Look, I'm going to burn down this abandoned building on the outskirts of town, and unless you really like fire and the possibility of death, I can drive you home and you can just forget I ever existed, or whatever you want.”

“Stop being so dramatic!” She sounds hurt, if anything. “Something is bothering you, something about the Jedi. Why won't you talk to me? Or Obi-Wan? He loves you, Ani, _I_ love you!”

He laughs at this, shaking his head, still looking her in the eyes. “Of course, right.” _I love you._ The thought makes him want to keep laughing but he refrains. He wants to hear it again. He wants to hear it when things are normal, except things will never be normal, and they never have been normal. She doesn't love him. She loves protection from the dark side, comfort.

Yet she doesn't know she's in the car with a fucking vampire.

“Eyes on the road,” she mutters. Something in her fears him, now, he can sense. She knows something is off about him, and maybe those human instincts of hers are finally kicking in, hinting at her that she's too close to a vampire and the vampire wants to _devour her._

“Are you coming with me or not?” he grumbles.

“Yes,” she says, and looks away from him at the dark road ahead. “I'm coming.”

 

 

 

“What is this place, Anakin?” Padme asks once they're inside the warehouse. The only light comes from the sliver of the waxing moon.

Anakin had to break open the front door, still without the key reserved for hunters. It wasn't even a challenge. Did Padme notice the lack of a struggle it was? She'll make an excuse for it in her mind. Rusted hinges. Weak frame.

He sets down the container of gasoline on the floor, while Padme is looking around the cold, dark expanse of the warehouse. Her eyes settle on the circle of mismatched chairs, by the shelves of books.

“Do people live here?” she asks.

“No. This is where the Jedi meet.”

Her nervous pulse begins pounding immediately and she takes a slow step away from him, then another, backwards. “Why are you burning down the place for the Jedi? They're you're... I thought they were your... family.”

“They're not.” He answers too quickly, his voice too cold. He matches each step she takes away from him, until she gasps when she backs into the wall. Anakin puts a gentle hand at her cheek, so warm against the coldness of his fingertips. “Don't be afraid,” he whispers, finding a certain kind of music in the way the breathes move quickly in and out of her. It makes his head foggy. It makes him not want to think.

Her lower lip trembles. “Ani... you're scaring me. Something's off.”

He leans his face in closer to hers, hushing her. He can hear nothing but her heartbeat, her breath; can see nothing but the fear in her eyes, her pulse beating steadily against that vein in her neck.

“You just have to trust me,” he says, and his lips are brushing against her jaw now. “You're... so warm...” He kisses her neck once, lips lingering, hovering. “So soft.”

When he pierces the smooth skin, she doesn't even scream. She doesn't breathe a word, doesn't breathe at all, while her blood floods Anakin's mouth.

She must have fallen against him, because they end up together on the ground, Padme limp in Anakin's arms, Anakin sucking every last bit of blood from her. He killed the night prior, two innocents in the country. Palpatine said it should have sated the thirst for a week, at least. It had been the best thing he had ever tasted, like punching a wall out of rage, like the first gulp of air coming out of the water, like the best sex.

Padme's blood is better.

Anakin doesn't mean to kill her, except he does.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ID SAY IM SORRY BUT IM NOT  
> there is a good ending i swear


	6. Chapter 6

The great cloud of black smoke rising into the night air tells Obi-Wan everything he needs to know, as he jumps out of his car a block away from the warehouse. There is light from within the open door that's hanging off , shining from the windows high above where the smoke escapes. Orange, bright light. Fire.

Obi-Wan likes to think of himself as a fairly smart fellow, not the kind to go running into burning buildings, but he does just this. He has to know if Anakin is inside, if he's okay. His cellphone is still lying in the passenger seat of his car.

Inside, flames lick at the cement walls, eating away at anything they can, at the unfinished wooden supports built against the walls, at the wooden beams crisscrossing the ceiling. The circle of chairs for the Jedi looks as if it was the first to be burned, books turned to ash. The air is thick with smoke, but Obi-Wan marches forward.

“Anakin!” he shouts at the silhouette standing still at the back end of the warehouse. He runs toward his apprentice. He's standing over something, someone, a body. Padme. Padme, not collapsed from the smoke, but with blood staining the front of her shirt and her neck, where ragged wounds have torn her flesh.

“My god,” Obi-Wan breathes. Anakin has not acknowledged him, until he shouts, “What have you done?”

“Get the fuck out of here,” he says, so lowly Obi-Wan almost doesn't hear him. His voice is shaking, unstable.

“You've joined the _dark side?_ ” Obi-Wan cries.

Anakin turns to face him at last. “I said, get the _fuck OUT OF HERE!”_ His eyes are ablaze, golden, so golden, reflecting the light of the growing fire. Blood stains his face, smeared away by his arm, where his jacket sleeve is stained as well.

“Why? Why did you join them?” Obi-Wan asks, his voice breaking, his heart already broken.

“They were going... to kill her,” Anakin says.

Obi-Wan groans. “God _damn_ you, Anakin!” he shouts. “How dare you do this to yourself? To _me!_ I love you!”

One of the beams from the ceiling collapses several feet away, half charred ash, half flames. “You're _LYING!_ ” Anakin all but screams at Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan hardly has his stake in his hand by the time he realizes he's being attacked.

Obi-Wan is too panicked, can't think straight, can't fight properly. He's suddenly forgotten all technique, making half-hearted jabs at the vampire that used to be his apprentice who is trying to kill him.

No, Anakin isn't his apprentice. He never was. Obi-Wan realizes this while cracking his stake against Anakin's head when he goes in for his neck with bared fangs. Anakin was always just _Anakin._ He always did what he wanted, not because anyone told him to. He should have. God, he should have at least listened for once! Rule number one: the dark side is the enemy!

Anakin knows this. He knows switching to the dark side was an act of self-condemnation, and yet he did it for Padme. To keep her alive and safe.

“You could have protected her as a Jedi!” Obi-Wan tries to tell the vampire, when they both have to break apart to avoid another flaming beam crashing down.

It's hard to breathe, the air too hot. They won't last long in here, or at least Obi-Wan won't.

“ _Now look!_ ” he cries.

Anakin doesn't answer, just lunges for him again. Obi-Wan ends up flat on his back with nothing between him and the vampire but his stake, trying to push him away. No, Obi-Wan doesn't want to hurt him, never wanted to hurt him.

But Anakin is lost. There's no use in keeping him alive, except Obi-Wan still hangs onto the strand of hope that there _is._ He is a newborn vampire, unable to muster self-control around blood. It isn't Anakin Skywalker trying to kill Obi-Wan, it's the dark side.

Obi-Wan just has to beat it out of him.

He manages to kick Anakin off of him, and the vampire narrowly avoids falling into flames. “We have to get out of here!” Obi-Wan shouts, backing toward the back door of the collapsing warehoues. He doesn't look at Padme's body, won't look at it, won't acknowledge her death until later. He can't afford that right now.

Anakin grabs him by the shoulders and throws him back through the door, slamming him against the brick wall of the next building across the small alley. Obi-Wan tries to fight him off, gasping in the clean air, not choked with hot smoke. His eyes burn from it.

Anakin has him by the wrists now, breaking both of them instantly. It causes Obi-Wan to shout at the sudden pain, dropping his stake onto the ground, useless. He's pinned to the wall, unable to fight against Anakin's vampire strength.

“Are you going to kill me?” Obi-Wan breathes.

“No.” His breathing is ragged, fast, but he's only looking at Obi-Wan's neck.

“Anakin, Anakin,” he says quickly. “Look at me. Look at me!” His gold eyes jerk up to Obi-Wan's and god, he's crying. “It's me, Obi-Wan. I'm your friend. Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

But the words don't get through the haze in his eyes, and Anakin's face is tucked against Obi-Wan's neck. This is where he dies, then. Killed by his own apprentice turned dark, in an alley beside where the Jedi's building burns down.

There are sirens in the distance, getting closer, and Anakin is so gently kissing his neck. The bite never comes.

But the punch does. It comes when Anakin lets go of him, and swings his fist at Obi-Wan's head just hard enough for him to hit the ground and see nothing but black.

 

 

 

He's lying across the back seat of the car he bought for Anakin, looking up through the window at the streetlamps whirring past. His throat is sore. It hurts when he breathes in, and it takes him a moment to realize the rest of him is sore, too. His wrists are broken, and then he remembers everything. The fire. The fight. Anakin has joined the dark side.

And Anakin is currently driving, still as if he's carved out of stone, his face remote. He moves to change the radio station, a new song playing quietly that blends with the hum of the engine. The movement of his arm is so simple, yet so different. There isn't an ounce of clumsiness to him.

Obi-Wan sits up, wincing when he puts too much weight on one of his wrists. He meets Anakin's eyes in the mirror. Gold eyes. It makes him cringe.

“The Jedi...” Obi-Wan's voice is rough when he speaks, graveled. “Are going to kill you...”

“Not if they think you already did.” Anakin sounds as remote as he looks, removed. Or maybe only tired. “You'll tell them that, won't you?”

He shakes his head after considering it for a moment. “No one can lie to Master Yoda,” he says. “And even if I tried, they know I could never kill you.”

“You tried to.”

Obi-Wan laughs at this. It's a sad excuse for a laugh, but it's something. “If I recall correctly, you were the one attacking me.”

“Maybe you don't recall correctly. I hit you pretty hard.” But Obi-Wan can see Anakin smiling just faintly in the mirror. It's good to see him smile, to hear him joke. It brings Obi-Wan at least some relief.

He leans against the back of Anakin's seat, looking out the window. They both smell like smoke and he can't wait to get home and shower. But they aren't headed toward either of their homes, he notices.

“Where are we going?”

“I'm taking you to the hospital.”

“That's a good idea.”

“Yeah, I have those sometimes. Believe it or not.”

 

 

 

Inside the hospital late at night looked exactly as it would in the middle of the day: nearly windowless, everything pristine and white, illuminated in bright light. Obi-Wan lied through his teeth about how he'd broken his wrists, or how Anakin _accidentally_ punched him in the face, or why exactly he was hanging around an abandoned building that just happened to also catch on fire that night. Hopefully any investigation won't be able to tell how the fire had started.

Anakin mentioned how as they were driving away, the entire roof collapsed. It was good they had gotten out when they did. The fire would have killed them both.

Obi-Wan now stands on the roof of his apartment building a week later, breathing in the cold, fresh air. Both of his wrists are bandaged tight, unmovable. Inside, just one floor below, he's already begun packing his things. He's leaving. He's going to his grandmother's house in the Welsh countryside. He just has to get far away from the Jedi, and at least they won't come poking around for him there. He hasn't spoken to Anakin all week, not since the hospital.

His head turns quickly when he spots movement from across the flat space of the roof. It's Anakin who's swinging himself over the short ledge, probably having climbed straight up the wall using the ledges of windows as footholds.

“Keep doing that, and someone will eventually spot you,” Obi-Wan mutters, knowing Anakin can hear him even several yards away through the wind. He turns and looks back out at the city, not at the vampire who stops beside him.

“I'm sorry,” Anakin says after a minute.

Obi-Wan shakes his head, watching the cars drive by below. It's a busy part of the city he lives in, always loud, even at night. “It was Palpatine who fooled you.”

“I couldn't even save her,” he mumbles.

“Anakin, I think Palpatine would have killed Padme regardless,” Obi-Wan says, trying to console him. “She knew too little about our way of life to be safe.”

“I didn't know anything either when you saved me.”

Obi-Wan remembers that night clearly, finding Anakin alone and bleeding and left for dead, nothing but a young boy, afraid and scared. Obi-Wan had only been an apprentice himself then. He places his hand over top of Anakin's that grips the cement wall so hard it might crack under his strength. The grip loosens some.

“I'm leaving,” Anakin mutters.

Obi-Wan looks at him suddenly, meeting vivid gold eyes that are already trained on his face. “I am, too,” he says, excitement suddenly rushing into him. “I'm leaving the Jedi. You can come with me! We can leave tonight.”

But Anakin is shaking his head, eyes fluttering away again. “Don't leave the Jedi, Obi-Wan,” he says. “If you can't tell them you killed me, at least tell them I escaped you. They'll try to hunt me down but I'll be long gone.”

“Where are you going?” He has to tell him this, at least.

“I'm not telling you that,” Anakin says lowly, and suddenly everything is very much like it was back at the warehouse, when Obi-Wan thought Anakin was going to drink his blood. The closeness between them is the same, yes, they're very close. And yet he's unafraid of the vampire beside him. “But... I'll find you again.”

“You say that as if you don't think I'll stay here.”

Anakin laughs, lowering his eyes. “I know you're not gonna stay here.”

Obi-Wan understands, then. He understands why they cannot travel together, and it's because Anakin _wants_ to be alone. He wants to figure all of this dark side business out first. It's unlike him to think so far ahead.

“Now what?” he asks quietly.

The vampire shrugs. “Now, this is goodbye. I guess. Sorry. That sounded dramatic.”

“Yes, that sounded very dramatic.” Obi-Wan laughs and it makes Anakin begin laughing, too. They're so close, they're noses are almost touching.

“For now,” Anakin adds, and he kisses Obi-Wan hard on the mouth.

He doesn't know why he's surprised—he shouldn't be surprised—but he is. And as much as he's wished for this moment, dreamed of the lips pressing fervently against his, of the tongue sliding against his, he's never imagined it to be painful. Anakin's fingers are twisting in his hair, pulling, but that's not painful. When he roughly pushes Obi-Wan back against the cement wall, when Obi-Wan holds him so tight it makes his wrists hurt, that's not really painful either.

But there is the chance he may never see Anakin again. It is always possible that no matter how far Anakin runs, the Jedi might still be able to track him down and kill him. Or, worse, they could assign Obi-Wan the task of killing Anakin himself, lest he wants to be called a traitor and killed himself.

_No_ , Obi-Wan decides. He'd rather die.

He's kissing a vampire, kissing _Anakin Skywalker,_ and he doesn't want it to stop, but it does. Anakin breaks the contact and takes a full step away from him.

When Obi-Wan opens his eyes, Anakin is already gone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK that is the end!
> 
> sort of
> 
> alright, theres gonna be an epilogue.  
> (coughcough)andapart2(cough)
> 
> i straight up have no idea how i just wrote the past like 3 ""chapters"" (quotes because they are really short to be called chapters) in a solid week? but here everything is! i guess!!!


	7. Epilogue

The Jedi meet in a mansion three stories high with property spanning out too far to see the end of. Yoda always complains about how much he hates living so lavishly, how he'd much rather go find a cabin in the wood somewhere, even live off the land. Most of the Jedi agree this is a ridiculous idea, even for Yoda. For now, he remains in the mansion, and as Obi-Wan walks alone down a hallway that seems too long, too white, too expensive, his palms are sweating.

Thick double-doors made of sleekly carved dark wood open to the drawing room, where inside, sitting casually among the lavish furniture, are all of the Jedi. So, Obi-Wan arrives last again, even in what he hopes will be his last meeting, though he planned to slip in quietly after the others.

The quiet entrance fails, and grants the entire chatty room with sudden silence instead. Each pair of eyes has suddenly snapped onto him before he can even finish closing the door.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Yoda says, the only pair of really friendly eyes in the room. “Come sit.”

The eyes all follow him across the room, only a few finally flitting away when he takes his seat in the chair beside Yoda that the old man had gestured to.

“Before addressing what has happened to the warehouse,” Yoda says, addressing the silent group, “something else, I'd like to announce.”

It's then that Yoda declares the three apprentices to be formal Jedi hunters. They're smiling and thanking their mentors who are congratulating them, and Obi-Wan feels like he should be smiling too. He would have been. Only if Anakin were there, finally being made a hunter as well. But the life of the Jedi could never suit Anakin, Obi-Wan has been reminding himself, and reminds himself again now.

“Burned down by Anakin Skywalker, we can assume the warehouse was,” Yoda continues after all of the congratulating and giddiness dies back down. “Found anything more about your apprentice, have you?” He's talking to Obi-Wan now, and he finally glances up, meeting no one's eyes in particular.

“Anakin attacked me in the warehouse, the night of the fire,” Obi-Wan says. It's not a lie, after all. “I fought him off. But he broke both of my wrists.” He holds out his arms briefly to show the bandages that are mostly hidden by the sleeves of his thin cloak. “Yes, he has joined the dark side. Seduced by Palpatine, he did it under the premise that it would save the life of the woman he loved. He is lost.”

“Never to return, I'll bet,” one of the older hunters mutters. Obi-Wan barely hears the remark.

“'Never to return' is right,” Yoda agrees, having heard as well. “Sad... but true. A reversal of vampirism, there is not.”

The words make him want to kick something, to clench fists and shout, but he remains seated calmly. “I have been thinking,” Obi-Wan says. _Out with it, Kenobi._ “And I'm leaving the Jedi Order.”

No one looks surprised. He doesn't know if the response is good or bad.

“You can't simply quit the Jedi Order as if it were day job!” an old hunter sneers.

“Sure he can,” Yoda says.

“ _What?_ ” someone protests.

“Master Yoda,” another adds, “the Jedi Order is a secret—”

“Allience kept alive for centuries, yes,” Yoda says, shrugging his small shoulders. “What reasons, have you, for leaving, Obi-Wan Kenobi?”

“I'm following Anakin,” he answers. Yoda smiles, as if he has guessed this. Obi-Wan doesn't doubt it. “Not to the dark side, but to bring him back from the dark side.”

“It would be easier to bring him back from the dead,” one of the younger hunters says, her voice not sharp, only honest. “It's impossible.”

“Perhaps,” Obi-Wan admits. “But I'm going to take that chance.”

He stands then, sliding off his cloak and allowing it to fall to he floor around his ankles. “If Anakin Skywalker is an enemy of the Jedi,” he says, pulling his stake off from his belt, “then so am I.”

He drops the stake onto where his cloak lays as a heap of fabric, and walks out of the room before anything else can be said.

Obi-Wan is dead to the Jedi. If they come after him, if they try to kill him, so be it. But he's going to find Anakin some day, and that will be the day he proves them wrong.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part 2 is def going to be a thing  
> thank u for reading this piece of hell that is my small first fanfic


	8. PART 2 - Chapter 7

It's a small, quaint residence, located among quiet hills of green grass and gray skies. Obi-Wan stands on the small front porch of the cottage his grandmother owns, far, far away from his old home across the Atlantic. Behind the house is a farm, mostly sheep, and a few other smaller animals, but it's the sheep that have been causing the most problems. Or rather, whatever is killing one of them each night.

But Obi-Wan knows what's killing them, despite heeding his grandmother's cautions about foxes. They both know foxes wouldn't kill fully-grown sheep, though the attacks look similar enough. But Obi-Wan had been a vampire hunter of the Jedi Order for most of his life, and he'll always be able to know a vampire attack when he sees one.

The attacks have been going on for two weeks straight, by now. Every night, he counts the sheep, every morning, one of them is dead. Anakin said he would find Obi-Wan and come back for him. It's been a little over a year since they last spoke. Obi-Wan hardly thinks its possible Anakin could find him, so tucked away, and yet who else can it be? A vampire taking weeks at a time to consider preying on some guy on a remote farm with his grandmother?

Obi-Wan leans his forearms against the white railing of the porch, looking out at the foggy sunset over the hills. The air smells fresh here, so different from the stale, choking air of the city. His beard has grown unkempt, his hair tangled and blond and hanging past his chin at this point. The air is just cold enough to make his arms prickle. He's in a t-shirt and old jeans that are now stained with mud. Everything is muddy here. It was humbling for the first week, the first month, but now Obi-Wan wishes for his old, pristine apartment again, but he's not going anywhere the Jedi might find him.

Movement, on the hills.

Obi-Wan narrows his eyes, straining to look past the fog at what is walking out of the sunset. A chill sweeps over him, and not from the cold. Someone is walking toward the house, and he's quite certain it's a vampire. He's also just as certain that it's Anakin.

He remains leaning calmly against the railing, waiting. His stake was left on the floor of Yoda's drawing room, but he knows he won't need it. Not with Ani.

But no, it can't be Anakin. They're too tall and wiry, hair too dark, black. When the vampire finally comes into view, Obi-Wan wants to fight him, wants to stake him through the heart, wants to tear off his limbs because _damn it,_ he's not Anakin.

He looks maybe eighteen, dressed all in black. Black jeans—too tight, black shirt—too lose, large black peacoat—also too loose, black leather gloves, black boots. He's got to be newborn with that sort of get-up.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi?”

The name gives him chills to hear outloud and it's about then he realizes he's almost forgotten his own name. His grandmother's been calling him by his childhood nickname, his middlename, _Ben,_ since he came to the farm. No one here knows his first name, which means the vampire heard of him from somewhere old, somewhere Obi-Wan never wants to return.

“What is it that you want?” Obi-Wan asks, standing upright.

“Oh, good!” He all but skips up the few steps onto the porch. He holds out his hand and Obi-Wan shakes it hesitantly. Cold, vampire hands. He's almost forgotten. “I'm Kylo Ren. You were a friend of my grandfather's.”

“What? Grandfather?”

“My maker. The one who turned me. It sounds better than step-father, right? I think so, anyway,” the vampire named Kylo explains, talking too fast.

“I haven't met the acquaintance of any vampires,” Obi-Wan says, turning to go back inside. “You must be mistaken.” _Oh god, Anakin, what have you done this time?_

“Not Darth Vader?”

“No.”

“Wait! What about Anakin Skywalker?”

Obi-Wan's hand pauses on the doorknob and he looks back at the vampire on his porch. “How do you know Anakin?” The name hurts to be said outloud, though he's thought it every day.

“Every vampire knows him. He's the leader of the dark side.”

“Oh, dear god,” Obi-Wan whispers, pushing his fingers back through his hair. He shakes his head and opens the door. “Come inside.”

Kylo follows him in, looking around the small, cozy livingroom. “Nice place you got here.”

Obi-Wan shushes him. His grandmother goes to bed at sunset and he's not about to have her wake up to this sort of company. Obi-Wan sits down in an armchair, the vampire follows suit, sitting in the middle of the short couch.

“So, allow me to get this straight,” he says quietly. “Anakin Skywalker made you a vampire?”

“Yep, sure did. Hey, you look kind of stressed. Kinda like you're gonna puke. Need anything? Some tea? I know how to make that! My mom taught me how last week. Get this: my parents have no idea I'm a vampire! I still live with them, and it's like they're—”

“Kylo,” Obi-Wan is mumbling.

“Yes?”

“Inside voice.”

“Got you. Sorry,” he whispers. “But anyway, Anakin goes by Darth Vader, now. He's sort of the leader of an army. Nothing big. Maybe fifty or so of us. I'm the first one he turned—his second in command, too!”

Obi-Wan's head is suddenly pounding. He doesn't want to believe anything this kid says. “Why are you here?”

“Darth Vader sent me to bring you home. Something about _bring Obi-Wan Kenobi to me immediately._ ”

“How does he... how did he find out where I was?”

Kylo shrugs. “No clue, you'll have to ask him yourself. But anyway, I got two plane tickets and the flight leaves in two hours.”

“Two _hours?_ ”

“Yep!”

 _Jesus Christ, Anakin,_ Obi-Wan complains silently. _You couldn't even come yourself? You send this child to retrieve me? “_ Okay,” he says.

“Okay?”

“Yes, okay.” He's waited a year for this already. “I'm coming.”

 

 

 

He leaves a note for his grandmother on the back of a receipt, written in a marker that's drying out. He packs his things into a single suitcase, the same one he brought with him. He hurriedly trims his hair back to how short it was when he left town, his beard too.

Kylo Ren drives them to the airport in a car he brags about having stolen, and he also brags about just having gotten his license a few months ago. Younger than eighteen then. He reminds Obi-Wan of Anakin when he was that young, but more foolish. Anakin was reckless, sure, but never foolish.

Kylo Ren doesn't speak for the entire duration of the flight, and Obi-Wan isn't even sure the vampire breathes. He wonders what it must be like, always craving human blood and spending a while in recycled air. There's darkness in him, more than he realizes. He's a vampire and Obi-Wan wonders if Kylo even knows what that means.

“Sorry about your sheep, by the way,” Kylo says once they get off the plane at three in the morning, in the city that is exactly the same as Obi-Wan left it.

Outside of the airport, Kylo leads them to a woman leaning against a motorcycle, clad in white leather with a helmet situated over her head.

“She'll take you to Darth Vader. I gotta go for now,” Kylo says.

“Wait, what? Where are you going?”

“Patrol around the city, making sure the Jedi don't find us,” he explains. “Vader always wants me to patrol from midnight until sunrise. That's like half the night! Anyway, I'm already late, so I don't want him to get pissed like usual.”

“The Jedi,” Obi-Wan repeats in a whisper, looking off at dark city that awaits them. Oh, god, the Jedi. Kylo heads off, and then Obi-Wan is left with this biker woman.

“Captain Phasma, nice to meet you,” she says, voice muffled from behind the helmet, and he awkwardly shakes her leather-clad hand. “Vader never shuts up about you. Get on.”

“Wait—what? You don't really mean for me to—”

“Christ, dude, it's a motorcycle. Just get on.”

Which he does. Reluctantly. He holds onto her tight, squeezes his eyes shut tighter, and keeps them that way for the whole ride.

 

 

 

Phasma takes him to what is probably the most expensive apartment building in town, riding the elevator up to the top floor. She's finally taken her helmet off, and she looks about Anakin's age. She's taller than Obi-Wan, too.

“I'll walk you to the door, just in case he's in one of his moods,” she says on the way up. “Then again, I don't know what kind of relationship you guys had.” The doors open and she leads him down the hall.

Obi-Wan doesn't really know what kind of relationship they had either. He still feels the kiss on his lips as if it had happened moments ago.

“Alright, this is where you get off.” Phasma knocks on the door for him, in the pattern Obi-Wan and Anakin had come up with just for the two of them so long ago. He wonders if Anakin has shared this pattern with the rest of his followers, or maybe just with Phasma and Kylo Ren, tasked with bringing Obi-Wan to him.

When no answer comes, she knocks again. And again. “He's probably out.”

Obi-Wan moves in front of her and just opens the door and walks in. “I'll take it from here,” he says to Phasma, and she's smiling when she shuts the door behind him.

The apartment is all dark inside. Spacious, multiple rooms. The only light comes from the general light pollution glowing from the windows. His eyes take a few moments to adjust.

The furniture is all victorian-style, elegant and expensive and everything Obi-Wan has known Anakin to hate. In one of the chairs that looks like something made more for decoration than for sitting, is a black silhouette. The silhouette sits sideways across the chair, leaning against where the arm meets the back, with his legs thrown over the other arm.

“I don't like the city,” Anakin says.

Obi-Wan walks forward until the silhouette becomes properly visible. “You used to love it.”

Anakin stands, and Obi-Wan notices he sets down a shining, metal stake on the table beside him. He takes a step toward Obi-Wan until they're chest to chest and oh god, how he's waited for this moment for so long. Has Anakin, too, dreamed too frequently of seeing Obi-Wan again? He's dressed the same as he ever was; jeans, t-shirt, leather jacket with the patches coming loose, some resewn badly.

There's a mask that hides his eyes like he's playing some kind of comic book villain, a black masquerade mask made up of lace that matches nothing about him but the pretentious apartment. His gold eyes look away from Obi-Wan, down at the floor somewhere, catching in the foggy light.

“Not anymore,” Anakin murmurs. He can see his fangs, just glimpse their whiteness when he speaks. “There's no wildlife, no livestock, nothing to prey on. Just... humans.” Those eyes flit back up to Obi-Wan's face. “Like you.”

Obi-Wan wants to say something, opens his mouth to say anything, but can't. At that moment, Anakin grabs him by the shoulders and whirs him around and throws him down into the chair, lips crushing against his. The rough movement dazes him, hurts but he doesn't notice, can only pay attention to Anakin's mouth. Anakin's desperate, _needy,_ but Obi-Wan kind of is too.

He's sprawled across the uncomfortable chair, arms wrapped around Anakin tight, a leg hooked awkwardly around him. The kiss is all heat, all groping hands. Anakin is gasping and he's falling apart, no sense of composure about him. Is it Obi-Wan's blood he desires? Is that why he had his followers bring him across the ocean? No, that can't be right. Anakin loves him, Obi-Wan is sure he loves him, and he's taken a full step away, leaving Obi-Wan a gasping, red-faced mess in the chair.

“No. I still can't do it,” the vampire says, sitting in the matching chair close by with his legs drawn up into it. He's wearing boots and doesn't seem to care about the upholstery.

Obi-Wan sits up slowly, looking carefully at him. “Are you alright?”

“Am _I?_ ” He laughs, looking off into the dark apartment. “I've spent most of the past year travelling. I've been _everywhere,_ searching for some _meaning_ to it all and there is none. I've practiced being around humans, but it's _you, your_ blood that fucks me up. I hate it. I hate everything and I hate this earth.”

“Anakin...”

“I saw you, you know,” he continues, a sharp frown twisting his mouth. “Several months ago, I saw you outside on your grandmother's farm. I was so close to you and you didn't even _know..._ But your blood, no, I had to leave. I wasn't ready then and I'm still not but I'm sick of waiting, Obi-Wan, I think I'm in love with you.”

Obi-Wan leans closer to Anakin, letting the words sink in. He still can't bring himself to believe everything Kylo Ren had said, about _Darth Vader_ , but the more he looks at Anakin, the more they feel true. He looks away from him then, can't look at him when he asks, “Who is Darth Vader?”

He shouldn't have asked, because Anakin stands suddenly and mumbles something about returning soon before storming out of the apartment.

 

 

 

Anakin breathes in the fresh air when he walks out into the city streets. The sun will be rising in a few hours, but that's more than enough time to fucking kill something. He marches off down the street on foot, walking until he's away from the populated routes, until he's on quieter streets near the part of town he used to live. It feels like another life. That's where _Anakin Skywalker_ used to live, and he's Darth Vader now.

He finds a girl walking alone and follows her. She's wearing a pair of high heels made of maroon, faux-leather, just like the ones Padme had.

He pauses.

Padme.

Padme, who had been walking alone on this same street. Padme, whose scream had woken Anakin, whose life he saved from vampires, who fell in love with him. Padme, who he killed.

He can't look at the girl, still walking away obliviously, growing smaller and smaller the farther away she gets. He squeezes his eyes shut tight, leaning back against the brick wall of the building nearest where he stands. The bloodlust sparked by Obi-Wan is fading, anyhow. He hunted just last night, he won't need to feed again for at least a week: he's not a newborn vampire anymore. But around Obi-Wan, he might as well be.

He doesn't know why Obi-Wan's blood is so strong to him, such a temptation.

“Anakin Skywalker!”

So much for the fucking mask.

When he looks up, he's surrounded by Jedi hunters, and learns immediately why Obi-Wan's blood is so strong. All of the Jedi have blood of the same scent.

There's one of them which he doesn't recognize, must be new. The rest of them he does, faces of the Jedi he's spent days on end with, he's trained with.

“Rumor has it that you died and Darth Vader took your place,” says the new girl who has her hair in three buns.

“Are you gonna kill me or what?” Anakin hisses. Fuck, their blood, their blood. There's too many of them on all sides and he's fighting the urge to latch onto the first neck he can grab.

“Not yet,” an older hunter says. “We're taking you to Yoda.”

Anakin rolls his eyes while a few of the Jedi grab him, threatening him with a stake at his chest and his back. “Torture is against the Jedi code,” he says. “I'd rather you kill me.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY!!!  
> first of all, YEP the force awakens timeline is getting thrown into this. i couldn't resist.  
> second of all, i don't see the point in publishing PART 2! as a part of a series so i'll just throw it here for convenience purposes. maybe this will end up novel length. probably will. DESTROY ME  
> there is so much angst ahead bc of course there is


	9. Chapter 8

Obi-Wan leans his forearm against one of the large windows of the apartment. It overlooks the city, goes from ceiling to floor, and he can see everything, it feels like. The window is otherwise hidden by a thick, brocade-pattern curtain. No sunlight. Not ever again, not for Anakin, not unless he'd like to be turned to ash. This thought, this detail that is minor compared to everything else, is what overwhelms him until it's hard to breathe. No more afternoon misadventures with Anakin, not unless the sky is thick and gray with steady rain. No more gold sun in Anakin's hair, in eyes that Obi-Wan still expects to be blue.

He lets a few tears fall, petty or not, looking out into the night and half-expecting to see Anakin out there among the wide awake city. It's been over an hour. Where is he?

He's hungry, hasn't eaten since complimentary food on the plane, but doesn't expect any food to be in the fridge. After a while, though, he looks anyway, mostly out of boredom. Nothing but cold air and ugly yellow light within. Maybe Anakin will realize Obi-Wan's still human with human needs and with no money and will bring him food.

He wanders into the bedroom, flipping on the light to reveal a pretty simple bed, quality but not overdone furnishings like in the main room. It's more like Anakin in here, not like some novelesque vampire lord. He hasn't realized how tired he is until he lays down on the blankets all in disarray. Does Anakin ever bother making his bed? Not likely.

The last thing he sees before falling asleep is the pale glow of dawn from beyond the edges of the heavy curtain.

 

 

 

“So, this is the legendary Anakin Skywalker?”

Legendary? Well, a bit of pride swells in his chest at this. It would have made him grin if he weren't sitting in a chair with his wrists and ankles bound with wooden restraints. The room they've taken him to is all dark, spare a cluster of candles flickering from a sconce on the wall. It's like some kind of dungeon, cold and damp with stale-tasting air. The Jedi had thrown a bag over his head before taking him to their secret fucking lair or whatever, knocking him out quite literally with a strike to the head, which still aches a bit.

That new girl, the one with her hair in three stupid buns for some reason, is talking to him from the shadows, lurking within them like she's the dangerous creature of the night and Anakin's the victim. He's been conscious for about twenty seconds and he's already bored.

“Or should I say _Darth Vader?_ ”

He looks up at her without tilting his head, grimacing. “That's more like it...”

“I'll talk, you listen, unless I ask you something. Got it?”

“You've been asking things.”

She frowns and the frustrated little creases forming across her face are cute, like a puppy. “Where is Yoda?”

“I was just about to ask,” he mutters, still expecting the old man to walk in. After all, that's who they said they were taking him to.

The girl's eyes flit away. “We don't know. He's been gone since we returned and no one knows where he is. It's you, isn't it? Your little band of followers!”

Anakin scoffs. “What would I want with some old guy that wears suits from the 70's?”

“He's the _leader_ of the _Jedi,_ ” she spits. “But you would know that. After all, you were a hunter.”

“No, actually, they never got around to making me a hunter. Service is kind of slow for apprentices here. Isn't it?” He grins then, meeting her eyes. “Oh, what? You're not an apprentice, waiting and waiting for the day they make you a hunter? Who are you, anyway?”

“My name is _Rey._ And I already am a hunter, and I ask the questions around here.”

She walks over to the wall the candles are situated on, and begins turning a crank beside them. Thin beams of light trickle in from the ceiling high above. Sunlight, fuck, sunlight. It burns the skin it touches, blistering like fire, no, worse than fire, has to be worse than fire. It doesn't look like it wounds him but it'll turn him to ash with enough of it.

“I'll ask you again,” the hunter says. “Where is Yoda?”

“I don't _know!_ ” Anakin growls through gritted teeth. His hands are clenched into fists, straining against the wooden restraints that cut and chafe. Torture isn't allowed in the Jedi, torture was never allowed, torture...

She pushes the slats in the ceiling open farther with the crank. “Where _is he!?_ ” Sunlight pours in thicker.

Anakin shouts in pain, shoulders drawn up rigidly, face tucked away from the light with his eyes squinted shut. “ _If you kill me, you won't find out anything!”_ he shouts.

Rey doesn't respond with anything but a sudden surprised shout, with the sound of the door breaking open. There's the sound of a fight, two people moving around the room in a scrap, but Anakin doesn't want to open his eyes, he can't. They feel glued shut against the light and _god_ this is real pain.

“Darth Vader! Are you okay?”

God damn it, that's Kylo Ren's voice. Fuck that kid. “My flesh is currently _BURNING, REN!”_ Anakin screams at him.

There's a thud, the sound of something falling to the floor, and the fighting ceases. He feels it when the sunlight is blocked again, cracking open his eyes and catching his strained breath. Kylo Ren is locking the crank in place, wearing a long, black cloak. Rey is unconscious on the floor but doesn't seem injured.

Ren tosses something at Anakin, a second cloak, made of dull brown, simple fabric. A Jedi cloak. “Take that. We're getting out of here.” He works on undoing the restraints that bind Anakin to the chair.

“Where the hell are we?” Anakin mumbles, standing carefully once he's free. He shakes open the balled up garment, sliding it on. It'll protect him from the sunlight outside.

“A bar. Actually, the basement of a bar,” Ren says. “This is where the Jedi meet, apparently. But I just pissed a bunch of them off, so come on, we better move fast.”

Anakin follows his second-in-command out of the bar, which seems nothing out of the ordinary on the route they take, and when he draws his hood up, he pauses. Fuck, it's been months and it still smells like him. Obi-Wan's cloak. “Where did you find this?” he asks.

Ren shrugs. “Dunno. Found it lying around here. There was a pretty cool looking stake with it, too.”

So, it's true, then. Obi-Wan had left the Jedi.

 

 

 

Anakin manages to avoid the Jedi all the way back across town to his apartment, locking all eight locks on the door behind him. Obi-Wan isn't where he left him, which isn't surprising considering that had been hours ago.

“Obi-Wan?” he calls out into the empty apartment.

He just hopes he didn't leave. Fear strikes him at the very thought, snapping through him like some new kind of fire. No, Obi-Wan can't leave. He won't come back. Anakin knows he won't. He throws open the bedroom door.

“Obi—” Alright, there he is.

Sprawled across Anakin's bed, Obi-Wan is asleep with his blond hair a mess and his face half-hidden in one of the pillows. Anakin sighs, sliding off his cloak and throwing it over the foot of the bed. The room smells like sweet Jedi blood and no, no, Anakin is going to get used to this, going to get immune.

He's unknotting the laces of his boots, sliding them off when Obi-Wan speaks in a tired mumble, “That's my cloak, isn't it?”

Anakin surprises himself with how relieved he is to hear his voice. “Yeah.”

He stands up, boots now gone, finding Obi-Wan looking at the cloak with heavy eyes, position unchanged. It slowly dawns on Anakin that the first and last time he had seen Obi-Wan asleep he was also carrying his unconscious body to his car and driving him to the hospital after the fire.

Anakin had been so close to killing him that night. But he hadn't.

“Where were you?”

He snaps out of his reverie, looking away from the man in his bed. “The new Jedi meeting place,” he answers. “This bar only a mile or two away.”

Obi-Wan sits up slowly, looking at him with a concerned frown. “Why?”

“I was kind of ambushed and taken capitve for interrogation. All I really found out is that apparently Yoda's missing and my second-in-command isn't completely useless. I'm lucky Ren was there.”

Obi-Wan is smiling faintly once the look of worry fades. “Were you expecting me to come valiantly rescue you?”

Anakin snorts, rolling his eyes. “Would've been nice,” he says. “Move over. I'm exhausted.”

He does, and Anakin lies down next to him, wanting nothing more than to sleep and to pretend he doesn't have the lingering urge to drain the blood of the man beside him. When Obi-Wan lays his head on Anakin's chest, he takes a sudden breath. Blood, hunger, devour, destroy—

“Your heart is beating.” The quiet words break the manic, frenzied thoughts.

“Yeah, it is.”

“You see,” Obi-Wan murmurs, fingers trailing over Anakin's arm until they find his hand, “you're not dead. The dark side has always called themselves the _undead..._ It's so dramatic. You're not dead, only another kind of alive...” His fingers knot together with Anakin's, hand so warm. “Yes... You're very alive...”

Anakin doesn't tell Obi-Wan he's wrong, doesn't tell him he's dying to taste his blood, because it's likely Obi-Wan already knows the latter.

“I don't know what to do about the Jedi,” Anakin says, staring up at the dim ceiling.

Obi-Wan shushes him, mumbles something incomprehensible, and then he's asleep again.

His throat aches with thirst, but he's not about to move. The truth simply is that he's never needed such a pain before.

 

 

 

Thunder splits the sky in two, lightning blooming and illuminating the rooftops of the city. Rain is pouring, cold rain, sliding in fat drops off of Rey's black raincoat. But she doesn't care, rather, she doesn't mind. She likes the cold wind, the sheer power of the weather. She launches herself down from one of the higher rooftops, dropping into a roll across the one below. Her shoulder throbs a bit from taking the impact of the drop, but she's not about to stop. She's in pursuit.

The vampire's a few yards away from her, a black shadow in the night. Yes, it's the vampire from that morning, she suspects. The one with the black hair that kicked her ass. She's not going to let him get away.

Except when he leaps from the sudden break in the rooftops, into an alley, Rey looks down to find he's stopped. She snags the thick, cable at her waist around the ledge of the roof to hook in, then slides down quickly to drop beside the vampire.

“Give it up,” she spits, stake aimed. With a single jerk, the cable comes loose and zips back into its place rolled up at her side.

He doesn't look at her, turned away and taking a few idle steps nearer the grimy brick wall. His black hair, black out of a bottle most likely, is all slick with rain, flattened until it almost reaches his shoulders in an inky mess. Rey glares at him from beneath her hood. “Not gonna try running? You can't beat me this time.”

But he doesn't respond, arms crossed tight over his chest—no, hugging himself. His silence is infuriating. Usually these assholes from the dark side are all self-righteous gab. That is, until Rey silences them.

“Do you even have a name?” she taunts.

“Kylo Ren,” comes the answer, so quiet she almost doesn't hear over the pouring rain. “My name... my name is Kylo Ren.”

His shoulders are shaking, and she'd assume it was because he was drenched in icy rain, but she remembers vampires don't really mind that sort of thing. He's crying. He's crying _hard._

“Kylo Ren,” she repeats. She snorts. “Did Darth Vader give you that name?” She takes his silence as a _yes._ There's blood on his hands, she notices, mixing with the rain. “Whose blood is that on your hands?”

His answer is immediate, and in time with a large clap of thunder. “My father's.”

Rey takes a step back, and it's then that she decides to put the stake away. She doesn't know why. It leaves her defenseless, but she has a feeling that this vamp isn't about to kill her. Probably.

“You're pathetic,” she mutters. “All of you. Darth Vader is all you have.”

Kylo Ren turns only somewhat, just enough to glare at her with dark, dark gold eyes, red and puffy. She stops backing away. Can't look afraid. Kind of is. There's suffering in those eyes. The powerful kind of suffering. She had seen the same kind in Vader. “Darth Vader saved me from the light,” the vampire growls.

Rey fights against the urge to roll her eyes, only because she's kind of afraid of pissing him off without her stake ready. She thinks about taking it back out, but doesn't want to look like a threat, not right now. “Do you even know Darth Vader's real name?” she says. “Do you even know Anakin Skywalker's story? Or do you think it just starts from the night he was turned?”

She takes his silence as a _no._

And she sighs and leans back against the brick wall, shoving her hands into her raincoat pockets. “The Jedi started training Anakin when he was nine. He was attacked by a vampire and it was a hunter Obi-Wan Kenobi that saved him. For years they were close friends, training together, doing everything together. It was only a year ago Anakin switched to the dark side.” She's looking off at a shadowy corner of the alley, not at the vampire in front of her. “Obi-Wan followed him.”

“That's not true,” Kylo Ren interrupts. “Obi-Wan Kenobi is still human, I met him.”

“Human or not,” Rey grumbles, “he's with Anakin now.” She's never met Darth Vader nor Obi-Wan Kenobi, not until she had Vader himself in interrogation. He'd been pretty disappointing too. Just a guy in need of a haircut that looked like he could use a nap. “Yoda thinks they'll both come back to the light some day. I think he's a fool to trust them. They're lost in the dark.” She narrows her eyes. “Just like you.”

Rey leaves him in the alley before he can open his mouth, walking away with her head down and a frown cutting into her face. Rain streaks across it anyway, blowing sideways and drenching her despite the raincoat. It drips from her chin, clings to her eyelashes.

She leaves the vampire alive. Leaves him to suffer. _Let him,_ she thinks. _Let him go crawling back to Vader._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u sm if you've read this far and lemme say all your nice comments make me SUPER happy and motivate me to continue writing this slice of hell!!! im glad some ppl are enjoying my first fanfic bc i expected ZERO
> 
> most of this (read: all of this) i post pretty much as soon as i finish writing it. i have a storyboard to follow but this is pretty much straight outta my ass and onto this site.
> 
> i also dont know why these chapters are so short. most of the chapters i write are 10k? these are maybe 2.5k each? who knows,


	10. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can't spell shame without M! check out that new rating

 

He wakes up around sunset, which he dryly thinks should mean he's joined the dark side. Then again, Obi-Wan hasn't joined any side but his own, but Anakin's side. Anakin, who is currently asleep in his arms, hair tickling Obi-Wan's nose. Obi-Wan moves his arm to smooth it down. His hand pauses in Anakin's hair, moving only when Obi-Wan catches the sight of his neck.

Oh, god, his neck. He hasn't noticed the scars until now. There has always been one—the one small, faded and hardly visible scar from the attack in his childhood, but now the bite-marks are clear, crescent-shaped white scars, littering all across the smooth skin. Palpatine hadn't bitten him just once, when he turned Anakin dark. He'd bitten several times.

Obi-Wan sits up to lean on his elbow only so he can lightly kiss the scars.

He doesn't know how this happened, how he's able to kiss Anakin after waiting for so long and how Anakin will let him, or how he's lying in Anakin's bed, so close to him. But he doesn't care how they got here, only that they _are_ here. He doesn't like dwelling in the past and while everything is more complicated than it used to be, he doesn't want to go back.

“Stop staring at me while I sleep...,” Anakin mumbles. His eyes are still shut.

“I wasn't—how did you know?”

“Just did. Dark side thing...”

“Are you tired?” Obi-Wan asks, fingers combing through Anakin's hair.

He mumbles something Obi-Wan can only take as a confirmation. He kisses Anakin on the brow—mostly just because he can—before he gets out of bed.

He unzips his expensive suitcase too loudly for the quiet room, taking out a change of clothes. He doesn't have many; he only brought to his grandmother's what would fit in the suitcase.

The hot water doesn't even run out when he takes a long shower, as it inevitably would back—no, not back home. This city is his home, always has been. When he comes back out of the bathroom, fully dressed complete with socks, he finds Anakin half-dressed in the bedroom, sorting through shirts.

“I thought you said you were tired,” Obi-Wan says, leaning against the door frame and glancing over Anakin's muscled back.

“I was,” he replies, tugging a shirt on. He turns to face Obi-Wan, pushing the sleeves up to his elbows. “It gets better once the sun goes down.”

A glance at the bedroom window tells him the sunset vanished during his shower, and outside is completely night. Nocturnal now, right.

“So, what is it you have to do today—tonight? Some various duties with the dark side, wise leader?”

“Nah, not really. Ren takes care of that. Wanna go out?”

The answer doesn't surprise Obi-Wan at all, actually. “Where to?” he asks, folding his arms over his chest.

“I wanna scope out that bar, the one the Jedi held me captive below,” he says, emphasizing the words as if he's truly offended Obi-Wan didn't come to the rescue.

“You don't find that to be risky? At all?”

Anakin crosses the room, his boots already on. “Nope. Come on,” he says. “The night awaits!”

 

 

 

It starts raining about the second they walk into the bar, a downpour that will surely drench them on the walk home if it doesn't let up. And judging by the thunder that's just beginning to strengthen, it's not going to let up any time soon. The sound of the rain hitting the windows blends with the music enough to make it somewhat bearable, at least.

Obi-Wan sits down at the bar with Anakin, who orders two drinks and passes them both to Obi-Wan.

“Where are you getting this money from, anyway?” he asks after taking a sip.

Anakin is smiling, leaning against the counter. “You're not gonna like the answer.”

“You've found a respectable day-job?”

“I get tips. Leader-of-the-dark-side sized tips,” he says. “My... _employees,_ steal from victims and I get half the profit.”

Obi-Wan almost chokes on his beer, swallowing awkwardly.

“What? Don't tell me you're still a Jedi after all. This is the real world, Obi-Wan, and in the real world, people die,” Anakin is saying. “Why not take what we can get?”

“Anakin, you can't _kill_ people! Much less _rob them_ afterward!” Anakin shushes him, and yes, alright, that was probably too loud to be said in public.

“What do you mean I can't kill people?” he mutters. “I'm a _vampire._ What the hell else am I supposed to do? Starve?”

Obi-Wan feels a frown cutting into his face, looking out at the crowd of bar-goers, any of which could be another victim of the dark side. “You could at least not take it so lightly.”

Anakin laughs at this, each chuckle feeling like a jab. “Oh, come on. Should I sulk? Would you prefer that? Being miserable?” His cocky grin has turned into some kind of scowl when Obi-Wan looks at him again, but now Anakin's the one avoiding eye contact. “I used to feel bad. I can't afford to anymore. I told you I hate the city.”

“Then _leave_ the city,” he suggests, waving a hand. He drinks down half of the glass quickly.

Anakin is suddenly brooding, leaning on his fist and glaring at the wood grains of the counter. God, he's a killer, isn't he? A vampire. Really a fucking vampire.

Obi-Wan drinks the other half and picks up the second glass instead.

“Stop drinking so fast, light-weight,” Anakin grumbles.

He rolls his eyes, starting on the second glass. “Like you aren't?” He can recall the many times he's seen Anakin drunk as hell after a drink or two, not limited to having to pull off the road so Anakin could bust out of Obi-Wan's car to vomit.

“No, not anymore.”

“Oh, right.” The drinking blood thing, that.

They sit for a while with a silence between them that drowns out the noisiness of the bar. Obi-Wan finishes the second beer, orders two shots, downs them both. Good, he's drunk, he's fucking drunk.

A chill climbs up the back of his neck, and when he looks over at Anakin, the vampire has glanced up at him as well.

“Something isn't right here,” Anakin says, sitting up straighter.

Obi-Wan nods, eyes scanning the bar. “I feel it too.”

 

 

 

It's Anakin that decides to venture into the back of the bar where the chill eminates from. Obi-Wan had complained that it was a terrible idea, of course, but Anakin didn't really care. He wanders back through a few halls of the bar, down a flight of metal stairs that clank with each footstep as he descends into the darkness of a supply room.

He feels the prescence in the room like a rumbling bass reverbrating in his ears, down his spine like ice. He knows this prescence, has felt it inside and out, has let it consume him. He walks past shadow-drenched shelves and crates of supplies he notices aren't for the bar. This is a room for the Jedi. Weapons all designed to kill things like Anakin, to protect the hunters that do.

But he can see in the blackness. It's still murky and everything is in a gray cast, but he's a creature of the night, a predator designed to hunt and kill and stalk and destroy. The darkness is his home.

“Why don't you turn on a light, Anakin?”

The ice turns to spikes in his chest when the voice confirms his suspicions. In the corner of the room stands a cloaked figure he knows too well.

“I don't like the light,” he answers lowly.

There is the vampire he has spent the last year longing to kill. That he has spent patrol after patrol out to kill, when his own efforts couldn't suffice. Now, they're together. Now, Anakin clenches his hands into fists. He might be strong enough to kill him. He needs to be.

“Mm, to each his own. I love the light.”

The vampire steps forward, pulling back the hood of his black cloak. Darth Sidious smiles in that creepy way he's so fucking good at. “Killing me will do you no good, Anakin.”

Anakin watches him, eyes not leaving his cloaked form as Palpatine paces idly around him. “I'm here to help you.”

“Get away from here before I kill you,” Anakin spits, vile rage dripping from the words like blood from a wound.

“Harsh words for your master,” the old vampire says. “Listen to me Anakin, Darth Vader. I'm here to warn you.” He shakes his head regrettfully. “I've watched you. And you have done well, but I worry. Your friend... you must send him away.”

“Why the fuck should I listen to you?” He sees red, all red, his chest tight with fury.

“Why should you not? I have given you the ultimate gift of the dark side. You must heed my warning, Anakin. Obi-Wan Kenobi is your biggest threat.”

Anakin laughs. “Obi-Wan is the farthest from a threat to me.”

“You love him, do you not?” Anakin answers this with only a frown. “Ah, see, that is the worst of it. Obi-Wan Kenobi has tricked you.”

“You're lying and I'm not falling for it,” he growls. “I'm not a fucking idiot.”

Palpatine shrugs innocently, looking at Anakin with sincere eyes of only gold and worry. “He will take you back to the Jedi.”

“He left the Jedi.”

“He wants you to think.” Palpatine lays a comforting hand on Anakin's shoulder and he yanks away from the touch immediately. He feels it like fire. “He's a cunning man, Anakin. And you're making it so terribly easy for him. Look at you. So in love, it would be cute, if not for how dangerous it is.”

Anakin lets his gaze flit away at last, glaring at one of the boxes filled with small, cheap stakes. “You haven't showed up in over a year and now this?”

“Forgive me for being so distant. I cannot watch the death of my own progeny.”

 _Progeny._ The word sickens him, feels like a knife in his gut. “Why would Obi-Wan take me back to the Jedi? They'll kill me. He knows that. I know that. I'm not stupid.”

“No, you're not. You're very smart, Anakin, aren't you?” He sighs sadly. “I know you and him have been close in the past. But the truth is that the Jedi have corrupted him. Brainwashed, if you will.”

No, Anakin's not listening to this. He's lying. But fuck, the cloak, Obi-Wan's cloak, it had been here. It had smelled so strongly of him after so long... He could have been lying about everything, could have staged being in Wales when Anakin was also there months ago, or when he sent Ren to retrieve him. He feels sick.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi is lost. He is too far gone into the side of the light.”

“He would never...”

But why not? What does Anakin have for Obi-Wan? What does the dark side offer Obi-Wan? Nothing but death. Anakin is death incarnate. Obi-Wan is flesh and blood and life and breath, sweet breath. Anakin fights for breath now, tears pricking at his eyes. His fists are shaking. No, no, no.

“You're saddened by this, I know,” Palpatine is saying. “But you must do what you have to in order to stay alive. And you must stay alive for the sake of the dark side.”

Why? What the fuck did he have to give to the dark side? His army of vampires... All of them out to destroy the Jedi. But Anakin isn't a part of the Jedi anymore, no, they'll kill him, and-- Fuck, he can't _breathe._

“I'm not killing him,” he whispers, staring off at somewhere unseen now.

“You aren't a fool, Anakin. Don't act as one.”

Anakin's eyes snap to the vampire suddenly, and yes, he's breathing now, fast, ragged breaths. “You're tricking me! You want Obi-Wan gone so you can kill me!”

“Why would I want to do that?” He smiles kindly. “You have your entire army of progeny to protect you.” The smile vanishes suddenly, becoming serious again. “But they can't protect you from the hunter you invite into your own bed.”

“Anakin?” The call comes from up the stairs, echoing in the supply room. Anakin turns, looking in the direction Obi-Wan's voice comes from.

“Please, trust me,” Palpatine says, and when Anakin looks back, Darth Sidious is gone.

Obi-Wan is coming down the stairs, stumbling in the dark. He's drunk, definitely, but not too drunk. He looks around the darkness, and Anakin remembers he can't see through it like gold eyes can.

Anakin walks toward him, aware of each step he takes and how it sounds against the cold floor. He's choking back tears and his heart is pounding.

“There you are! Fuck, what happened? Where are we?” Obi-Wan asks. His eyes settle on Anakin's face and Anakin can hardly bear to look into them, but he does. He likes the torture of it.

He could do it.

He could kill him.

He could do it right now, in the Jedi room, leave his body as a message to them. Anakin grabs Obi-Wan by the front of his jacket, yanking him up against him. It would be so easy.

“Anakin? Say something. You're being creepy.” His words are slurring. God, he's so human.

He can feel Obi-Wan's pulse, erratic like his own. He can feel his breath against his face, the scent of liquor. He wants to devour it all.

Anakin wraps his arms tight around him, fingers grasping his jacket, twisting in the fabric. He's leaning his face into Obi-Wan's neck, breathing deeply the scent of sweet blood, and suddenly they're back in the alley beside the burning warehouse.

He opens his mouth, parts his lips just enough for his fangs to graze soft skin. The vein in Obi-Wan's neck thrums against his lower lip, taunting him, begging him. Obi-Wan is saying something, asking him questions, saying things that attempt to pull Anakin out of the haze Obi-Wan can tell he is in. But he doesn't hear the words. He grunts his own:

“Fuck me.”

“What?”

Anakin repeats it, tearing away from Obi-Wan's neck and glaring hard into his eyes. “Fuck me.”

“You—want me to—now?”

“Don't make me say it again,” he mumbles. His hand has found it's way to Obi-Wan's neck, thumb pressing over the vein where he can feel his pulse increasing.

“Al—right? Alright.” He glances around. “So, where are we gonna do this? Who takes their clothes off first?”

Anakin slams him back against the closest wall, which requires a few assertive steps back toward it. Then his hand is in Obi-Wan's hair, pushing it back and pulling hard. His other hand is working on Obi-Wan's belt, trying to pull it apart, which is anything but deft. He's kissing him, tasting the alcohol on his tongue.

Anakin breaks the kiss to look at what the fuck he's doing, deciding he'll have to use both hands. He gets the belt undone, unzips his pants, and yeah, he's hard now. And Anakin is too, he realizes once he pushes past the red haze of bloodlust to find actual, human, gritty lust.

“Are you sure about this? _Here?_ We don't even have any—”

“I'm a fucking vampire, Obi-Wan, you're not going to _break me._ ” _Not that I'd mind._

His words are rampant mumbles, while he's trying to get out of his pants as fast as possible. He drags Obi-Wan down onto the dusty floor once he does, and Obi-Wan still uses his spit to get the job done easier.

And then Anakin's got his face pressed against the floor of a Jedi supply room, getting fucked by his half-drunk mentor, who wants him dead. How the hell did it come to this?

But god, he needs it. Just needs this once before everything they have inevitably goes to shit. Obi-Wan's fingers are digging into him and he wishes he had his shirt off so he can feel them claw down his back. He wishes he were still human enough for it to hurt.

Obi-Wan comes first, gasping out a quiet moan. It takes Anakin longer to get out of his thoughts and get himself off. He's got one arm braced against the floor, the other getting tired. But Obi-Wan pulls away, fast enough that it should have hurt, and pushes Anakin over onto his back.

He glances down into Anakin's eyes once, flashes him a quick smile in the darkness, and Obi-Wan only has to go down on him for a minute before he comes.

 

 

 

It's still raining when they leave the bar, disheveled and sweating, and Anakin leads the way back home with Obi-Wan's arm slung around his waist.

He leaves Obi-Wan at the apartment, calling a local place to bring him delivery. Anakin forgets humans need to eat, sometimes.

Now he's walking back down the street, smelling like sex and the staleness of the rooms beneath the bar. The rain washes everything off, soaks him, chills him to the core but it's not what he needs. He doesn't know what he needs. And he doesn't know where he's walking to until he gets there.

He's at least twenty blocks away from home, standing across the street and looking dimly out at the fragmented remnants of the old warehouse. There's bright yellow caution tape all around what remains of the building, whipping in the wind. Most everything is ash and rubble, charred remains of what used to be.

Anakin's walking across the street and into the remains before he realizes his feet are moving.

The structure is unstable but it's not like some sort of incident would do any harm to him. He ducks under a large, fallen beam that leans haphazardly. In the back, most of the chairs they had all sat in so frequently have been destroyed, all but that god-damn, metal folding chair he himself used to occupy.

When he passes the place he knew he had left Padme to die, where he had killed her himself, he feels nothing. He remembers the taste of her blood precisely, her last, stuttering words

_Ani... you're scaring me._

He cringes, running his fingers into his damp hair.

_Something's off..._

Yet he feels nothing, standing over the place her body has burned. Nothing. Not a chill, a twinge of dread, only emptiness.

This whole place is empty.

But if there's one thing in Anakin that _isn't empty._ It's something that _burns._ It burns hot, aching like metal branding the back of his mind. It came back after so long, it betrayed the Jedi for him, it knows what he's done, and loves him still.

 _It_ wants to kill him.

No. It's the only thing keeping him alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love good old fashioned sinning  
> i think i've figured out how this part 2 is gonna go, so yay! ahahaha buckle the fuck up  
> still a good ending i promise


	11. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have an emo playlist  
> http://8tracks.com/ivk/things-that-happen-after-sunset-1

Flying.

It feels like flying.

She swings down from the top of a building that's at least thirty stories high, almost worried her line won't be long enough. But she reaches the ground safely, as she does every time, and her line zips back and winds up at her hip as it does every time. She trudges off down the dark street, wishing she were headed home so she could go to bed. It's half-past midnight and she's got class tomorrow.

 _Follow your instincts._ Yeah, that sounded good and everything in retrospect, but she's cold and really regrets skipping out on dinner. The oversized, thick coat is pretty warm, but it's always windy in the city. She misses her old home. As much of a shit-hole as it seemed at the time, she wants to go back. _Follow your instincts,_ she reminds herself again, a grumble in the back of her head. Luke was so cryptic.

Luke had been her mentor, teaching her for a year, and somehow convincing Yoda to make her a hunter after such scant training, much to the dismay of the rest of the Jedi.

Her _instincts_ are currently leading her to the closest restaurant, which is a fairly sketchy 24-hour pizza place. She's got eight bucks on her, which has to be enough for at least _something._ Then again, everything is so damn expensive in this town.

Rey ends up sitting out on the sidewalk, feet resting in the street, still full of puddles from last night's storm that have started to soak through her sneakers. She eats the single slice of pizza that's probably been there for more than a few hours, looking out at the occasional car that passes by. She wonders what they think of her, if they think she's homeless, some drunk girl on the street. Nope. Just a vampire hunter who should be studying for finals.

There's movement from a window high up on the building across the street. It's a hotel building, she notices. Or at least, it was. Abandoned. Go figure. The building is falling apart. Little balconies that extend from the old rooms are crumbling, most sloped with the decay of their wooden support. The place is pretty much the definition of a safety hazard, Rey thinks. And in such a populated part of the city.

But wait, that's definitely movement, a human silhoutte. The old french door opens outward, and the silhouette steps out beneath the moonlight.

Holy _shit._

Rey drops her pizza crust into the damp street, jaw dropping. There he is! There he fucking is!

“Oh my god,” she breathes, and stands slowly.

But Yoda catches her eye, so high up, she knows he's looking dead into her eyes. And he smiles down at her while she looks on, aghast. She steps down from the sidewalk, into the street, heading to the abandoned hotel. She doesn't want to take her eyes off Yoda, afraid he'll disappear again, but she has to when a taxi almost runs her over, horn blaring with curse words thrown out of the open window.

When she looks back up at Yoda from where she stands in the middle of the street, cars passing on either side of her, all he does is shake his head, wave a finger that signifies her to stop.

What the hell!

_Don't come here, Rey. You cannot face Palpatine alone. Wait._

She screams at the voice that speaks directly to her _._ She whirs around, as if it had come from someone standing behind her, but no, it had come from her own head! Yoda's voice! She looks back up at him, breathing heavily, but he only smiles before returning back inside through the french doors.

Yeah, people around her definitely think she's on drugs. Actually, she might be. 

Rey takes off running down the street, back to the Jedi. _Someone_ has to be there, beneath the bar. She'll tell them what she saw. Yoda! He's been missing for _months._

 _Follow your instincts._ Well, shit. Maybe old Luke wasn't crazy after all.

She throws a final glance over her shoulder before she ducks down an alley to take a short cut. When she turns back around, she screams shortly, because fuck, she's just run into someone.

She stumbles back, nearly tripping, finding Darth _fucking_ Vader smiling at her.

“Going somewhere?”

Rey catches her breath as the initial shock wears off. Her hand goes to her stake inside her jacket, pulling it out. “Darth Vader,” she growls. “Get out of here. I have shit to do.”

“You're not going to try and kill me?” He steps closer to her and she all but snarls at him.

“Get away from me!” she bites. “No. I'm busy.” Rey frowns, pausing. “Actually... I think I might owe you an apology.”

Vader laughs, folding his arms over his chest. “For what part? Interrogating me mercilessly and ruining my morning? Torturing me with sunlight? Tying me to a chair in general?”

She rolls her eyes. Yeah, she definitely can't stand him. “You didn't kidnap Yoda.”

“Obviously. I told you that—multiple times, actually. What would I want that shriveled up old guy for?”

Something has changed within him since they last spoke, and she can see it in his eyes, can feel it snapping through the air like restless energy. He's breaking. Already broken. Still cracking more.

Palpatine.

She's heard that name before Yoda whispered it into the back of her head. A trusted friend of Yoda's who had secretly been dark all along. There have been rumors among the Jedi that it was Palpatine who turned Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader.

She presses her lips into a thin line, looking at him carefully. “I think... We might have a common enemy.” She hopes she's right. Instincts.

Vader narrows his eyes, looking at her with something between a smirk and a scowl. “Something _tells_ you?”

Rey huffs a sigh, shrugging exasperatedly. She doesn't let go of her stake. “Luke—my mentor—told me to follow my instincts, and well, I don't know. Do you know someone named Palpatine?”

Yes, he's completely scowling now, and it almost looks like a pout. “What do _you_ know of _Darth Sidious?_ ” he hisses.

Her grip on her stake tightens but she stands her ground. “I hear he's the one who turned you to the dark side.”

The look in his eyes, the pure, thinly veiled rage, makes her brace herself for a fight. But all he does is answer: “You don't know anything about me.”

“I don't,” she admits, not submitting to weakness, only stating facts. “Not really. I know a story that's been tossed around the Jedi for over a year and I know rumors. This Palpatine guy. Who is he to you?”

His ocher eyes turn away from her, glaring elsewhere. His breathing has remotely sped up, and Rey probably shouldn't be asking these things, but she's not going to stop.

“He's your new mentor?”

“No!” he spits. “No.”

“Friend?”

“No.”

“Pal?”

“No.”

“Amigo?”

“Stop it!” he cries. “I don't know! I haven't spoken to him in a year, but I did last night—actually, no, I shouldn't be telling you this. He's nothing to me. Why do you want to know?”

Rey takes her eyes off him, something she knows she shouldn't do, but she does anyway, trusting he's not about to kill her. She looks back down the street at the abandoned hotel. “Because I think he's the one who kidnapped Yoda.”

Vader snorts from behind her. “What would he want with Yoda?”

“I don't know,” she says, looking back at him. “But look, I don't like you. Don't get me wrong. You're the leader of the dark side and I kind of hate you—”

“Thanks.”

“But I think... maybe we could, I don't know—”

“Work together?”

She frowns. That sounds way too friendly for her taste. “I was thinking more along the lines of business partners. Just for this. Just to get rid of this Palpatine—Darth Sidious—whoever.”

“You think I'm going to help save the leader of the _light side?_ ”

Rey throws her hands up into the air, rolling her eyes. “Forget it. Nevermind. It was a bad idea.” She glares at him. “And he's not the _leader._ We don't have the same fucked up hierarchy like the dark does.”

“I'll help you kill him.”

Her grimace vanishes. “Wait—really?”

“Yeah,” he mutters, shoving his hands into his pockets. “He's got some kind of plot. He was lying to me last night.” He shakes his head. “He tried convincing me to kill my friend.”

“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” she assumes.

He looks at her carefully. “Yes. Obi-Wan Kenobi. But I know he would never kill me.”

“Alright.” She finally puts her stake away, and holds out her now empty hand. “Truce?”

Vader takes her hand, shaking it once, twice, in his cold grasp. “This doesn't make us friends.”

“Definitely not.”

 

 

 

Anakin leans against the cold wall of the shower, hot water pouring down his back and rolling into his face. He rinses his mouth with it and spits it out rust-stained. He still tastes the blood in his mouth fresh from his last kill on the way home from talking to that Jedi girl.

He stands there for some time before turning off the water. Obi-Wan's asleep in the other room, napping at around two in the morning. His sleeping schedule is destroyed and Anakin wishes there were something he could do to help, but there's nothing, really. He towels off in the bedroom with Obi-Wan's barely audible snoring in the background, pulling on a pair of sweat pants. He tosses the towel into a corner to forget about, then leans back against the dresser and looks at the man sleeping in his bed, yet again.

That man saved his life when he was a child. That man trained him in the ways of the Jedi, personally paid for his first apartment, his car, and came back to him after Anakin betrayed him. That man had also fucked him in the basement of a bar, but that seems inconsequential in comparison. He'd always known Obi-Wan was pretty gay. It was never something they really talked about, but not something they avoided either. Anakin can recall a few men Obi-Wan had seen in the past, just fleeting people who never really mattered in the first place other than to be that week's topic of gossip.

Anakin's always thought of himself as straight, but after yelling at a man to put his cock in his ass, he's pretty sure it's not one hundred percent.

His hair is dripping down his face, onto his shoulders. He forgot to dry it off. Or he didn't really care. He's going to have the same damn length of hair forever, isn't he?

Anakin sits down on the bed cross-legged beside Obi-Wan, looking down at him. He places his hand gently in his hair, hoping the light touch doesn't wake him when he smooths his fingers faintly through it. Obi-Wan's always been a heavy sleeper. The fact alone has resulted in a variety of pranks pulled in the past, at Obi-Wan's expense.

Palpatine was lying. Anakin is certain of it, now, and it's like a weight lifted from his shoulders. How could he have believed him for even a second? Obi-Wan would never defect to the Jedi, would never _kill_ Anakin. No, he loves Anakin.

Besides, what evidence is there to say Obi-Wan has joined the Jedi again? The cloak Ren found? It's probably been there since Obi-Wan _left._ But why would Palpatine lie? What purpose did it give him? Why would Palpatine want Anakin to kill Obi-Wan?

Anakin won't. The thought is unbearable, certainly. The scent of him has filled the entire apartment, sweet-smelling Jedi blood. He remembers, now, that there's a word for this. The reason Jedi blood is so _enticing,_ so _blinding..._ He hasn't heard it really talked about since he was a kid, but it's come back into his mind, long-forgotten. The force.

Which is a pretty lame name, he thinks, but it's fitting, at least. God, force him, it tries... _Drink me, drink me,_ the scent sings. Anakin won't do it. He'll kill Obi-Wan with a knife in his back before he ever drains him.

But maybe a taste would be alright. Yeah, just a taste. Just to see what Jedi blood is really like, to experience the force. He wants to know. He needs to know. He...

His hand is wrapped tightly around Obi-Wan's throat, having moved from his hair, and Obi-Wan is wide awake and looking up at him with more concern than anything else. His fingers are squeezing, digging into Obi-Wan's skin, and the man's face has started to turn red.

“Anakin...” he wheezes. “What... are you doing?”

It takes all of his willpower to stiffly pry off his own fingers, drawing his hand back toward himself in a fist. Anakin is shaking. Shaking with want, desire, hunger. He needs Obi-Wan's blood.

Obi-Wan sits up, life returning to his face as he looks at Anakin carefully. He keeps his distance, though it's not much.

“Anakin, can you hear me?”

Anakin's eyes are trained on his throat, on the pulsing vein. He can picture delicate bite marks, a thin trail of blood. Harmless. Just a taste.

“Anakin? It's me, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Of course it's fucking Obi-Wan, that's the problem. Anakin grabs his wrist suddenly, yanking his hand toward him. His breathing is disjointed, heavy, and his eyes fall shut when he presses Obi-Wan's hand to his face, drinking in the scent of blood. It's the scent of life. His lips drag feather kisses, his tongue tastes his palm.

Obi-Wan doesn't pull his hand away. But with his other one, balled into a fist, he strikes Anakin across the face as hard as he can humanly manage.

Which doesn't hurt him at all, but god, Anakin fucking wishes it could. It does, however, send him falling back across the bed ungracefully, lying crumpled on his side. No, no. He'll never drink from Obi-Wan.

“Are you alright?” the man is asking and Anakin shuts his eyes again, not answering.

He focuses on anything but the scent of blood, anything but the Force. The softness of the bed beneath him, how uncomfortable his arm is the way he's laying on it, the cold dampness of his hair pressing against his cheek.

“I'm sorry,” he mumbles, still not opening his eyes, which he's now pinched shut harder.

The bed shifts, and then there's a warm hand on his arm, tentative, but loving, so much love behind it. “I know.”

 

 

 

Anakin went out again that morning. He didn't ask Obi-Wan if he wanted to come with him, which Obi-Wan took to mean he didn't want him to. He still feels Anakin's hand around his neck, squeezing tighter, tighter. Still feels the gentle kisses at his palm, kisses of death.

He's pacing around the apartment now. He wants to leave, knows he shouldn't. He pushes his fingers through his hair, keeps his hands situated there exasperately at his head, takes them away again. Anakin won't kill him... He still hopes.

Of course Obi-Wan still has hope. He's always had hope for Anakin, no matter what. All through his training, Obi-Wan had hope. When Anakin turned to the dark side, Obi-Wan still had hope.

No. He has to put his feelings aside and be _smart_ about this, damn it. How long until Anakin kills him?

That's all it really boils down to, isn't it?

How long until Anakin kills him? There isn't an _if_ involved. The Jedi taught him long ago never to trust a vampire, no matter how “good” they seem, no matter how much Obi-Wan wants to “save” them. The idea of saving vampires was something that had driven him nearly to madness when he was younger. They were human to him, and he struggled with killing them for years. There have been many vampires Obi-Wan tried to bring back to the light.

And each time, he's almost ended up dead because of it.

Anakin isn't any different. Anakin was human once. Anakin was a human that Obi-Wan fell in love with, that, he won't deny. But despite how much humanity still clings to him, still a young vampire, it won't stop Anakin from one thing and one thing only: blood lust. 

The Force is strong, Obi-Wan knows, and it draws Anakin in to the point that it must be a kind of suffering.

Obi-Wan splashes cold water on his face from the bathroom sink, slicks his damp hand back into his hair, and looks up into the mirror. His eyes are sunken, shadowed from disturbed sleep. He wants there to be bruises on his neck in the shape of fingers, wants there to be burns. The skin is perfectly intact. Waiting for the bite.

He cracks his fist against the mirror so hard that it shatters.

And then oh, there he goes, crying.

Blood is dripping into the sink from his hand, falling onto shards of glass that lay in the porcelain. He has to get rid of the blood, needs to clean it up, bandage the wound thoroughly, needs to bleach the sink.

He notices then that he's moved his hand from the sink, and there's red spattering over the white tile, too. He hurries out of the bathroom to grab paper towels from the kitchen, to start.

But then he turns around, paper towel roll in hand, and sees the faint track of blood across the floor, leading to where it's smeared against the heel of his foot.

Obi-Wan sits down in the middle of the floor and cries.

It's hopeless, it's fucking hopeless. This whole game, it's a lost cause and it will only result in pain. He knows this. So why is he still playing? It has to end.

The supply room beneath the bar. It's filled with weapons, stakes Obi-Wan can easily go back and get. He can snap off the leg of one of the fancy chairs if he needs to. He has to do it. Has has to kill Anakin.

And he can't remember crying so hard in his life.

He covers half of his face with his hand, the bleeding hand, muffling audible sobs and jagged breaths. Anakin could come home any minute. He has to clean all of this up, has to get a hold of himself, but he can't even stand.

He has to kill Anakin. He has to _kill Anakin._ Oh, god, he'd rather kill himself. But this isn't about him. Anakin is the leader of the dark side, a killer leading killers—no.

He has to stop thinking of him as Anakin Skywalker. That man is dead. Darth Vader killed him.

And Obi-Wan needs to put a stop to it all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM WHAT THE KIDS CALL TERRIBLE


	12. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is literally just angst

Obi-Wan doesn't talk to Anakin that night. He walks out into the early sunlight for what feels like the first time, hand bandaged, apartment cleaned.

And there's something painful about the sun. Something Obi-Wan never noticed before. He's seen plenty of sunrises, many dim mornings. But he stands in the middle of the sidewalk, people walking around him in the constant crowd of the popular block, as he stares up at the pink sky. There's something terribly final about it.

Something in him is too numb to cry, or else he probably would have in other circumstances.

He comes back to reality after standing in the way of people trying to rush to work for what was possibly a good few minutes. Or maybe only a few seconds.

It's to the bar that he heads to, a few blocks away, closed until noon. He kicks open the door with one strike using the heel of his foot. The door flies open and it all has the feel of an action movie, and Obi-Wan expects only for a second to hear Anakin laughing from behind him.

Oh, God. What is he doing?

He's walking. That's what he's doing. He's walking through the empty bar and down the cold metal stairs into the basement. He finds a string connected to a single light bulb on the ceiling, which he pulls, illuminating the room in a sickly yellow light. He walks passed the spot he'd had Anakin pinned to the floor, doesn't look back.

But just because he isn't looking doesn't mean he isn't thinking, eyes running over various assortments of weapons and supplies. He didn't want it to have happened that way with Anakin, didn't want them to fuck on the basement floor or some bar, with him more than tipsy and Anakin in some foul mood. He wants to know if Anakin wanted it to have happened that way. He also wants to know if Anakin was a virgin, but he doubts it.

It doesn't matter!

Obi-Wan shakes his head fervently, as if the very action can dispel the thoughts. It doesn't matter, nothing does. He has to do the job. What he and Anakin had, what they would ever potentially have, it was all inconsequential. Any lovely future Obi-Wan has fantasized about before bed, filled with smiles and kisses and breakfasts together, was only means of distraction.

He has to face the truth.

He stops stalling and picks out whatever stake will do the job.

And he doesn't notice until he's halfway home that the one he chose was the one that had been salvaged from Count Dooku's half-decomposed corpse of ash, that had been abandoned, that had belonged to Anakin before everything went wrong.

It seems a little dark, to kill a man with his own weapon. But no, Obi-Wan decides. It's the only right way to do it.

He is so numb and there is a hole in his chest, a void that will never be filled, a screaming in the back of his head that buzzes like a mosquito and drains blood the same. He wants to let it out. He wants to scream and cry and rage and break the stake in half.

He does none of those things. When he comes back to the apartment, he wanders into the silent bedroom, and finds Anakin asleep. The vampire is lying on top of the sheets and blankets, which are all in disarray, despite Obi-Wan's attempts at keeping the place organized, and he's still fully dressed complete with his boots still on his feet. Shoes on the bed, damn it, this irks him. This mundane detail among a variety of bigger problems still causes Obi-Wan to cringe and roll his eyes.

He places the stake in the top drawer of their dresser. He doesn't care if Anakin finds it. He can lie.

Anakin is lying sprawled out on his back, as if he'd just come into the bedroom and immediately collapsed.

Obi-Wan slips out of his shoes, sheds his coat, and lies down onto his side beside him, wide awake.

An hour must have passed, at least, all with Obi-Wan lying there with his eyes tired but his head a frenzy, searching Anakin's sleeping face for something, anything. There's little peace about him, even asleep. Even lost in dreams, and perhaps because of this, there's the faintest furrow to Anakin's brow, the slightest strain in the muscles of his face that manages to make him look discontented.

Obi-Wan moves to get something to eat from the kitchen, then comes back into the bedroom and sits on top of the vanity for a few more hours. At first, he sits in meditation, eyes shut and mind empty in the silent room. But it's no use, no, definitely not with his thoughts running so wild.

The stake is in the dresser.

Anakin is asleep.

Correction: Darth Vader is asleep.

Obi-Wan should get it over with. He should stop prolonging the agony.

But sits on that vanity and prolongs the agony until the sun sets.

And once it does, he watches as Anakin begins to stir, rolling over onto his side so that his back is to Obi-Wan. But he's awake. There's a difference in his breathing; it's shallower, faster.

“Were you a virgin?” he asks quietly, not really intending to. It's sounds kind of awkward, breaking the silence the way it has.

“Mm... what?”

“Before the bar. Were you a virgin?”

Anakin sighs through his nose, sitting up lethargically. “What does it matter?” he mumbles. So, yes, then. Funny. “And stop watching me while I sleep. It's fuckin' weird. Like you're plotting my murder.” He laughs quietly. “Or imagining us banging.”

Anakin wanders out of bed, not saying anything about how Obi-Wan doesn't answer. He skips over to where Obi-Wan is sitting now with his legs dangling over the edge of the vanity, and smiles before kissing him on the neck.

He stiffens at the approach. Anakin is going to kill him—no, he's not. He's just kissing him.

“How rapidly does your self-control fluctuate?” Obi-Wan mutters, tilting his head back when the lips kneading at his neck start becoming a distraction.

“Very,” Anakin remarks. He moves abruptly to the other side of Obi-Wan's neck, sucking what's definitely going to leave a bruise under his jaw. “I'm starting to think it just requires practice,” he adds in a whisper.

Obi-Wan's hands slide onto Anakin's hips to tug him closer, to hold him tight, while his breath becomes disjointed and his face feels too hot. There's also heat quite literally rising between his legs, especially while listening to Anakin's own breath become heavy at his ear.

And then Anakin's got him pushed back so that he feels the cold glass of the mirror on his back through his shirt, and it's about that time when their lips come together. It's possibly the most ungraceful kiss Obi-Wan's ever participated in. It's too fervent, there's too much tongue involved, but Anakin is grinding his hips into Obi-Wan's and yes, alright, this is good, this is very good.

But no, it's not. God, it's all wrong. He's got the feeling that furiously making out with the man you're about to kill in the near future is a little horrible _,_ at least on some level.

Anakin pulls away and takes more than a few steps back before Obi-Wan can even suggest they stop. He's breathing hard and his face is flushed but he doesn't look Obi-Wan in the eyes. Anakin doesn't look at him at all, actually.

Instead, he grabs his keys off the dresser.

“I'm going out,” he mumbles.

“So am I. I want the car,” Obi-Wan says, deciding this as abruptly as the words come out.

“It's _my_ car.”

“I bought it for you.”

Anakin rolls his eyes and still doesn't look at Obi-Wan when he tosses the keys onto the bed. “Where are you going?”

“Does it matter?” he snaps bitterly. He draws one of his legs up onto the vanity. “Fuck off, Anakin.”

The vampire pauses by the door, a frown twisting his features, and Obi-Wan realizes that he's never said those words to him before, and certainly not in such a harsh tone.

“Anakin...” An apology is on the tip of his tongue, but the vampire is already gone.

 

 

 

When Obi-Wan gets into Anakin's car, he takes out the pack of cigarettes he bought on the way back from the bar and the lighter he knows Anakin keeps in the glove-box. When he turns on the radio, it's all Anakin's music playing, those newer rock bands full of rage and youth. He considers briefly finding a station he'd like more, but decides to turn up it up loud like Anakin would.

He tears out onto the streets, fast and reckless like Anakin drives. He'll go in one direction until he can get out of the city. He needs to get out. Needs to just drive.

Anakin is out there somewhere, killing someone probably, bossing around younger vampires to kill too.

Obi-Wan is not coming back until the pack of cigarettes is gone and he can think again.

And yet as he's flying down the highway, he remembers his cellphone in his back pocket and he fishes it out. Anakin has gotten a new phone since he had in fact left his lying in the street a year ago, and his new contact in Obi-Wan's phone is daring him.

He forgets all rules of driver's safety and hits call.

It's not until the fifth ring that he wonders why the hell he's trying to make amends, why the hell he's calling to make sure he didn't really hurt Anakin's feelings, when one of them is going to undoubtedly kill the other by morning.

 

 

 

Anakin picks up his phone that vibrates steadily from it's place on the floor, in the pocket of his discarded jeans. He's in new clothes now, ones that aren't blood-stained, when he emerges from the bathroom after showering. He takes it out, not recognizing the number, but he answers anyway as he walks across the room to the dresser to find a shirt.

“You've reached the dark side,” he hums into the phone, smirking a bit as he pulls open the drawer.

_“Anakin?”_

Obi-Wan.

Waiting in the drawer, lying so openly across the clothes, is a Jedi stake.

The blood rushes to his head and he can't tear his eyes away from the stake. It's his stake. The one he left in the body of Count Dooku.

_“Are you there?”_

“Yes, I'm here.” The words sound empty, even to him, but he's not there, he's worlds away. He's in an alley fighting vampires, he's saving Padme's life, he's debating on if he can kill Palpatine, he's killing Dooku.

_“Oh. Good. Are you alright?”_

He doesn't recognize Obi-Wan's voice, not now. Obi-Wan Kenobi is from another life, the life of Anakin Skywalker. Darth Vader doesn't know any Jedi, not any he hasn't killed, and fuck if Obi-Wan isn't a fucking Jedi. Why else would he have the stake? Why else would he have the cloak? Why else would he not come for him when the Jedi kidnapped Anakin and put him under the sun?

 _Fucking kill me, I dare you._ The words are on the tip of his tongue. “I'm fine,” he says instead. _I'll kill you first. Try me._

 _“I'm sorry,”_ Obi-Wan is saying.

Anakin tears his eyes away from the stake just as Obi-Wan breaks off into a dry cough. “Don't tell me you're smoking,” he says, leaning his forehead against the drawer that he can't manage to shut just yet.

“ _I'm not,”_ he answers. _“But I am sorry. I took my anger out on you, my frustration—”_

“It's fine.” He wants this conversation to end.

Palpatine was right.

He was _right._ Obi-Wan is a Jedi.

But if Obi-Wan wants to kill him... Anakin still can't be sure. The stake was left in plain sight and if Obi-Wan was planning his murder, wouldn't he want to be stealthy? Maybe he left it as a warning, telling Anakin to _fuck off_ before he has to kill him.

But Obi-Wan wouldn't kill him. He wouldn't.

But Obi-Wan is loyal to the Jedi.

Or is he loyal to Anakin?

Anakin shoves the drawer back into the dresser too hard, nearly breaking it. Obi-Wan asks what the commotion is, but Anakin hangs up.

 

 

 

Only a few hours from dawn, Obi-Wan comes back to the apartment twelve cigarettes later because by the thirteenth he was going to be sick if he kept it up. It's all dark inside the apartment. All dark, except for candles, which are lit and sitting all over the place.

It might have seemed romantic, he thinks, if it weren't so fucking creepy. Music plays quietly from an antique record-player in the corner, some dreary, slow instrumental tune.

And there's Anakin sitting in one of the expensive chairs, the same way he had when Obi-Wan first arrived, jet-lagged and sick of Kylo Ren.

He's even wearing the lacy, black mask again, which is perhaps the scariest part of this entire situation.

“Is this what you do when I'm not here?” Obi-Wan asks. “Sit in the dark with that damn mask and listen to this dreadful music? You're a proper vampire lord, Darth Vader.” There's venom in each of the words, increasing when he realizes what Anakin is holding.

It's the stake.

Which shouldn't be surprising, but it is nonetheless, and all the fear it suddenly drives into Obi-Wan manifests in bitterness.

“You found it.”

“I found it.”

“Now what?” He feels alight, feels drunk, feels asleep.

“I don't know. You tell me.” Anakin stands lethargically, taking off the mask and letting it fall to the floor. He looks down at the weapon he holds. It looks right in his hands. In fact, it's never before looked so right.

When he holds it out, Obi-Wan walks over and takes it from him hesitantly.

“You're with them.” He wants it to sound angry. He wants the rage. Anakin sounds sad.

“Who?”

“You know who!”

“The _Jedi?_ ” He's suddenly very tired. “No, I'm not. I resigned a year ago, Anakin!”

And then Anakin is kissing him, kissing him hard, and it seems that hard, fervent, desperate kisses are all they'll ever have. Desperate, because they both know it will be their last.

 _Leader of the dark side, killer leading killers,_ Obi-Wan reminds himself, when he almost gives in, almost lets Anakin kill him first.

Obi-Wan whispers against his mouth, “Why do I get the feeling you're going to be the death of me?”

Anakin whispers back, “I was about to ask you the same.”

That's when Obi-Wan grabs the vampire by the shoulders and throws him back into one of the chairs. It's in no way romantic. It's all aggression, all fight, but Obi-Wan is still kissing him.

Anakin kicks him off hard enough to send him flying a few feet back and into the coffee table. The wood splinters and breaks beneath him and he crashes to the floor instead. Obi-Wan manages to keep hold of his stake, even when Anakin picks him back up by the front of his jacket, and slams him back into the wall.

There's rage in his gold eyes. There has been rage in his eyes since they were blue.

Obi-Wan is kissing Anakin's neck, and waits until his grip slackens just slightly before shoving him down onto the floor. He bites Anakin's neck as hard as he can manage, until it makes his teeth ache and there are tears burning into his eyes. He wants to break the skin, wants to spill _Anakin's_ blood. He's sweating.

When Anakin struggles beneath him, finally whimpering some noise of pain, Obi-Wan lets go and stands up, taking a breathless few steps back.

“You're killing me!” Obi-Wan cries. “Why have you done this? _WHY?_ Leader of the dark side!”

Anakin stands more slowly. His neck is just faintly bleeding. “I'm a vampire,” he growls, and his voice is anything but human. “You think I should deny what I am? That's where you and I are different, Obi-Wan.”

It's a sob that breaks from Obi-Wan's throat and he disguises it in an anguished cry, swinging his stake at Anakin. It slices against his shoulder, sending him stumbling into the wall with a hiss of pain.

“You and I _are_ different,” Obi-Wan spits. He's shaking, wants this to end, so _badly_ wants this to be over.

He aims to strike again, but it happens so fast that it seems almost insignificant.

Anakin moves back toward him.

Anakin knots one hand in his hair, yanking his head back.

Anakin sinks his fangs into his neck.

And for what feels like a long, long time, the room is silent. The walls blur as tears well in Obi-Wan's eyes before spilling over and dampening his cheeks.

Killed by his apprentice gone dark.

Of course it would end this way. He's known for over a year that it would. But there is one thing, one scent in the air that Obi-Wan detects. It's not the burning candles, not the sweat, not the smoke that clings to his clothes. It's the scent of blood.

Obi-Wan can smell Anakin's blood, and then the gears of his mind are turning, spinning quickly. The very second Anakin draws away from Obi-Wan's neck, he gathers what last bit of strength he has, which is not much considering he can hardly remain standing. In fact, he falls against him when he locks his mouth at Anakin's neck.

He digs his dull, human teeth as hard as he can back into those wounds he already created. He tastes blood—bitter iron and salt, and sucks what he can into his mouth, swallowing desperately and trying not to gag.

He lets his head fall against Anakin's shoulder, wrapping his arms around him. Anakin, who isn't moving. Anakin, who isn't breathing. Anakin, who whispers softly,

“I love you”

at the same precise, synchronized moment Obi-Wan does, right before stabbing the stake through his back.

Obi-Wan lets go of Anakin. The vampire falls to the floor. Obi-Wan stumbles back against the wall and oh, god, he can feel it happening. The change. The turning. The becoming. No, no, think about the dark side later. Survive now.

Blood spreads over the carpet from Anakin's body like a dark shadow in the candlelight, and he's looking up at Obi-Wan. He opens his mouth to speak, but coughs up blood instead.

Obi-Wan is shaking his head. “I love you,” he says again. His head is spinning and he can't think and oh, god, the change, the change. “I love you.”

“ _FUCK OFF!”_ Anakin cries. He's trying and failing to stand.

Which Obi-Wan can't bare to watch.

He leaves, staggering off. He doesn't know where he's going, but he doesn't look back, and he's never going to look back again and he's going to smoke the last eight cigarettes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ITS OK HE'S FINE HE'LL WALK IT OFF THERE'S A HAPPY ENDING EVENTUALLY


	13. Chapter 12

He can hear them calling for him, their panicked voices seeping through the thick, black screen of unconsciousness.

They call him Darth Vader. He can hear other sounds, too. Things being moved around. The radio on quietly, with the host talking about trivial things. They talk back and forth to one another, nervously asking,  _Is he going to live?_ And the other replying, _It missed his heart, of course he'll live. Does he look like a pile of ash to you?_ And asking again, _Why won't he wake up?_

Anakin cracks his eyes open at that point, his vision hazy and gray around the edges, and the first thing he notices is how he's never been so hungry.

“Vader!”

His vision won't focus on either of their faces, but he's trying to sit up, elbows shaking. The pain in his chest confirms the memories and somehow those hurt more. Blood. He needs blood.

A glass of it is shoved in his face, probably from a pack taken from the hospital, but he drinks it anyway. He hates blood that isn't fresh. Hates how cold, lifeless, unsatisfying it is. But he's starving, and it'll do. He downs the glass in a few seconds.

Vision clearing, strength returning, he finally glances around and takes a mental catalog of where the hell he is. Dark room, lit by a few lamps, windows high on the walls indicating they're mostly below ground. Right, the dark side meeting place. An unassuming basement-level apartment in the slums of the city.

He matches voices to faces. Kylo Ren. Phasma. Just the three of them and the quiet apartment. He has white bandages across his chest, the faintest bit of dark red having seeped through. Now that he's not on the brink of death, he realizes yes, that hurts a lot.

He's had worse.

“How did you find me?” he mutters, not looking at them, not looking at anything really.

“No one had heard from you all night, and you weren't answering your phone, so we figured we'd drop by,” Phasma answers. “Which, good thing we did, because you would have definitely starved after how much blood you lost.”

“Your rug's kind of ruined.”

“Yeah.”

Anakin pushes his fingers back through his hair. They're trembling. He's still hungry, still weak. “Where's Obi-Wan?”

“Who?” Phasma asks.

“This friend of his,” Ren explains to her. “He had me go across the ocean to bring him here.”

“Oh, that one! Handsome Man With Beard.”

Anakin's eyes flit between the two and there's something forming in his mind, in the pit of his stomach, and he thinks it might be panic. “Where is he?”

“I... don't know? Was he with you?” Phasma asks.

Anakin reaches up to touch the wounds he knows are at his neck, finding more bandages instead. He wants to rip those off. “He was...”

His mind is spinning, as he recalls Obi-Wan looking down at him, saying over and over _I love you_ through lips stained with Anakin's blood.

Oh, god. No.

No!

Anakin hefts himself off of the couch he's lying on, stumbling when he puts all of his weight onto his feet. There's a cloak hanging by the door, one of many.

“Where are you going?” Phasma asks, authority in her voice. “Sunrise is in a few minutes!”

Anakin throws on one of the cloaks, raising the hood over his head. “I have to find him,” he mumbles, grabbing another cloak, too.

He opens the door, stepping out of the apartment. He can hear the protests of Ren and Phasma from behind him, but he doesn't listen. He never listens.

He goes up the set of stairs as fast as he can which isn't very fast at all, considering how weak he is, and when he gets to the door, throwing it open, he sees the sky. Black, dark indigo, pale blue fading up from the horizon. The sun _will_ be rising in a few minutes.

He doesn't care. He holds the cloak tighter to his body and starts running.

 

 

 

Rey is sitting on the balcony from the restaurant portion of the bar the Jedi meet beneath, legs crisscrossed on top of an uncomfortable metal table. She tries to ignore that much. The city is waking below, but she tries to let it all turn into white-noise. She keeps her eyes shut.

She doesn't usually get up so early, but she couldn't sleep. She was too worried about Yoda, kidnapped by Darth Sidious, possibly dead. As a last resort, she tries reaching out to him in meditation.

It was something Luke had always gone on about, which she'd dismissed as bullshit. But she'd also dismissed his _follow your instincts_ mantra as bullshit, too, yet following her instincts led her right to Yoda.

And ever since she'd heard Yoda's voice literally speaking to her, through her mind, she figures she can give it a shot. It won't hurt.

She lets her eyes open, sighing. Yeah, she was never any good at meditation. She leans back on her palms, looking up at the skyline over the buildings. It was mostly dark when she shut her eyes, and now it's pale pink. A rosy sort of color mingling with orange and blue.

Rey lets out a slow breath and shuts her eyes again, face angled toward the sunrise.

 _Yoda_ she asks, not really sure how she's supposed to be doing this. She reaches out with her mind, tracing over rooftops and around brick buildings to the abandoned hotel she saw him at. _How can we help you?_

There's no response. She reaches farther. Maybe she's not doing this right. Maybe Yoda is ignoring her. Maybe Luke's bullshit wisdom really was mostly bullshit.

She's started to focus on the change in light through her eyelids and shakes her head sharply to focus on feeling for Yoda again. Back across the city. Back to the hotel.

 _How can we help you?_ she asks again, as loud as she can make her thoughts.

Nothing.

Maybe Yoda isn't even at the hotel anymore, maybe Darth Sidious has taken him to some other remote location. Or killed him. Stop thinking! Too much thinking, not enough focusing.

_To shout, there is no need!_

The reply, in Yoda's voice, as clear as if he's sitting beside her, comes knocking into her mind.

 _Am I going crazy or am I really talking to you?_ She feels more at ease now, sending these words to him without as much painful concentration.

_Talking, we are. Learned this trick from your mentor, did you?_

_Luke told me it was possible,_ she answers. _But are you okay? What is Darth Sidious doing?_

She can sense Yoda smiling, looking at her in a knowing sort of way. _Keeping me hostage, I believe Palpatine is. Killing the Jedi, when you come to rescue me, he is planning._

The sun is warm on her face, now, and she wonders if the vampires ever miss it. She would. _I've been thinking of how to get rid of Darth Sidious, probably through a direct attack._

_Very dangerous, that is._

_Well, I've sort of gone rogue._

_Oh?_

_Sort of. I think I just teamed up with Darth Vader. But don't worry, alright,_ she quickly adds, _it's only because I think he wants to kill Darth Sidious just as much as the Jedi do. Maybe more._

She chews on her lip, anxiously awaiting Yoda's reply. _Wise, that is. But careful, you must be. Assume the dark side is going to help, you must not. Shaky are the relationships in vampire covens. Little sense of loyalty. Follow their leader, they might not._

 _We'll figure it out, Yoda,_ she assures him. _I promise we'll get you out of their soon, alright?_

Rey has never broken a promise before.

 

 

 

Kylo Ren stands beside Phasma, looking out of the apartment window at the rising sun. The whole sky is illuminated, threatening full daylight soon. It burns Kylo's eyes and keeps throwing his vision out of focus whenever he shifts his gaze, but he stands watch with Phasma anyway.

“When the sun rises we'll have to close the blinds, you realize,” she says.

Kylo nods. “He'll be back soon.”

Phasma's only looking at him, concern in her black-lined eyes. “You think so?”

He frowns, staring harder out at the sleepy neighborhood. “He has to. Right?”

She sighs, leaning against the wall. “Whoever Obi-Wan is... Vader really likes him. I mean, he never shut up about him for the past year.”

It's true. Kylo can easily recall a variety of times Darth Vader has been saying something, whether it be giving encouraging speeches, giving orders, reports, anything, where he has mentioned Obi-Wan Kenobi.

“I don't know what happened last night,” Phasma continues. “But it clearly wasn't good.”

A thought occurs to him. “What if he's dead? Obi-Wan?”

She looks at Kylo seriously. Everything in her eyes says she believes that to be true. “If he is,” she answers, “then I don't think Vader's coming back.”

 

 

 

_Careful of young Skywalker, you must be. Loyal, he is, to neither the dark nor the light. Meet his end, he will, this way._

 

 

 

Anakin has never run so fast. And people must think he's insane. A guy dressed in a black cloak panting and crying and running two towns over.

The early morning light hurts his eyes, skews his vision, but he has the cloak. Even if he's still out in full daylight, he won't burn with the cloak. But Obi-Wan, god, where is Obi-Wan?

He forgets why they were fighting. It seems inconsequential, as if it happened in another life. A life where they weren't fucking in love. Anakin didn't drink his blood. Obi-Wan didn't put a stake through his back. Obi-Wan isn't a vampire.

The sounds of cars honking at him, of tires squealing to a halt when he runs through the street, barely registers. His apartment building is just down the block, he can see it now.

On the roof, someone is standing and looking at the sun.

On the roof, Obi-Wan is waiting for it to fully rise.

Anakin is so weak. He needs to feed. But he grabs the closest ledge of a window and climbs up the side of the building that faces the busy street.

Which causes people to scream and look on in awe and almost crash their cars.

But exposing the dark side to humanity doesn't matter.

Anakin hauls himself up onto the roof, stumbles, falls, but gets up and keeps running across the area.

Obi-Wan has sunken to his knees. He's wearing nothing but a thin pair of shorts, and Anakin can see the faint smoke rising from his exposed skin, yet Obi-Wan is silent, looking up at the sun.

When he gets close enough, Anakin throws himself at him. It's almost a tackle, draping the second cloak around Obi-Wan's shoulders in the same motion.

“What are you doing?” Anakin breathes, yanking the hood over Obi-Wan's head. His heart is pounding, he's breathing hard, and his chest is aching in protest to all of this movement, but he doesn't care. Obi-Wan looks up at Anakin.

He's never seen Obi-Wan cry before.

No, he saw him crying before he left Anakin to bleed out on the rug.

But that feels like a nightmare that wasn't real.

Anakin wipes the tears away with a hand that shakes, sliding it back into Obi-Wan's hair beneath the hood afterward.

“I thought I killed you,” he whispers.

And then Anakin starts laughing, shaking his head 'no'. He's not sure exactly why he's laughing, but he does, and he's still trying to catch his breath.

“Oh, my God,” he sighs, the hand resting steadily at the back of Obi-Wan's neck. “What the hell have we gotten ourselves into this time?”

Obi-Wan begins laughing too, a slight chuckle of so much _relief_. “We're both alive.” Fresh tears spill over his eyes.

Anakin just nods, pulls him close, and kisses his forehead firmly. Obi-Wan then leans his head against Anakin's shoulder, while Anakin wraps his other arm around him to hold him tight.

“I love you too,” Anakin says softly, thinking of the fervent words Obi-Wan had said last night.

 _Do you hear me?_ he wants to cry to the man who had tried to kill him. _Say something! Answer me! I love you! I_ love _you!_

He doesn't. He just holds the new vampire gently, trying not to think about last night. The sun has risen and it doesn't matter. They're alive. They're alive and in love and the world won't stand a chance against them together.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thts the end no epilogue keep a weather eye out for part 3 which im posting separately 
> 
> (o god part 3 who am i what have i become just lemme b free)


End file.
